Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1884 — TARIFF REFORM. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF REFORM.

Views of a Notable Business Man. “Protection Force® Down Wages”—The ShortSighted Policy that Has Lost Us the Carrying Trade—A Party’s Great Opportunity. New York Herald: Mr. Royal Phelps, the head of the venerable and well known shipping and banking house of Maitland, Phelps <fc Co., was yesterday asked.by a Herald reporter for his vKws on the tariff question as an issue in 1884. “The question is one involving every interest in the country,” said Mr. Phelps, “and one on which few men can give an offhand opinion worth very much. But, such as it is, I have no hesitatiort in giving it to you if you think it can do any good. There is no issue to-day of such absorbing interest as tbe ta riff. It is an interest that must be met squarely or not at all All over the country I hear of failures in all forms of enterprise. Mills are closing, producers can not dispose of their surplus, and laborers have to be turned away or else accept lower pay.” Do you, connect this state of things with the operation of the tariff?” “I do, most unquestionably. The high duties which are levied at the custom house have the effect of cutting off the competition of foreigners. The result of this is to gi ve the domestic manufacturer the control of the home market, or even in some instances, monopoly. Now, it inevitably happens, where the government gives undue advantage to one set of manufacturers, that these make in the beginning such large profits as to induce others to embark their capital in same form of enterprise. This competition among domestic manufacturers soon result in over production, the domestic market becomes glutted, the people won’t take any more, the manufacture! cannot ship his goods to other

WHY WE CANNOT EXPORT. “Excuse me, but what is to prevent him?” “The tariff again. The very same laws that give him the monopoly of the home market and allow him to force Americans to buy his goods, make the cost of his manufactures so dear that when he has a large stock idle on his hand he cannot ship any of it to Mexico or the West Indies in competition with England.” “Then do I understand you to say that manufacturers are not benefitted cy prosection?” “I have not the figures at hand to demonstrate what I say, but I am firmly convinced that if all the duties of a pro. tective nature were to-day re - moved our [manufacturers would be in a more healthy condition than they were under dur high tariff. You see, a manufacturer pays so much more for his plant, ais tools, his raw material and his labor on account of the tariff that the duty on the manufactured article helps him but little.”

THE WORKINGMAN AND PROTEC TION. “How would the abolition of a protective tariff affect the laborer?” “Here/ again, volumes ofifigures ,co u 1 d be produced to show that ‘protection’ doe,'? not protect the w-oi kingman. But figures are dangerous things to handle; they are sharp tools that need skillful using. This question, however, can be well determined by the experience of any old mill operative. I think any man who remembers the cost of living in 1860, when the tariff was a low one, on nineteen per cent, will tell you that in those days he was better off than he

is to-day with the tariff at for-ty-five per cent onan average. J mean that he could give himself better clothes, give his children more comforts and all ©round enjoy life more than to-day. Perhaps his wages did not look’so big, but he got more for them.” “But would not wages be reduced if we abolished protection?” “Not at all. I believe they would rise. The protectionists have .for the last twenty years been telling workingmen that if they voted against pro tection they voted against high wages. Well, what has been the result? The wages of men in protected industries have been steadily cut down, and they will go down still further before they go up again. The fact is,” we can not pay living wages so long as the tarifi forbids us to import our raw material free.” HIGH WAGES VS. PAUPER LI’ROR, “But Jean American labor compete with the eheap labor of the rest of the world?” “It does successfully now wherever it is not hampered with the tariff. We raise wheo in comp«tion with the cheap labor of Russia, India ana ■Egypt. The farmer has to pay a tax on all he buys, and yet when he comes to sell he must take free trade prices. The protected manufacturer says to him, 4 you must be taxed high on your iron implements, your lumber, your crockery, your harness, your clot hi n g—in short, all you use.’ But when the farmer turns round and asks for high prices for grain he finds that he must take what he can get for it in Liverpool, in competition with

the wheat of all the world.— Now, the highest wages of labor are those paid in our western grain regions, and yet from there come our great exports. It is so with cotton, rice, tobacco and Ipetroleum.— The rate of wages has little to do with success in production. We export a number of ingenious things made by highpriced American labor and sell them in countries where the people make the very same things with cheap labor.— S witzerland, no doubt, would like 1 ) be protected against the cheap clocks and watches of America; England would, no doubt, be better off if we did not compete with her in the mauufacture of fire-arms. In fact, successful manufacture calls for high intelligence on the part of the operative. The low priced labor of Spain needs protection against the high priced labor ot England when it comes to manufactured cottons. In this country we see that the high priced labor of the north has nothing to fear from the cheap labor of the southern negro, any

more than the English manufacturer with high wages fears the competition of Chinese laborers in starting factories in China. Laborers’ wages are regulated according to their intelligence and strength, on the general principle of supply and demand. “It stands to reason that where a protective tariff raiss the price of everything that a workingman uses, as with us, his wages must be correspondingly raised if he is not to be ground down to a pauper level. But I am satisfied that his wages have not kept pace with the increase in the tariff, and that the workingman of to4ay is a poorer man than the one of twenty-five years ago in the same protected industry.” Notick.—The Directors of the Jasper County Agricultural Society are hereby notified that on Saturday, the 19th day of January, 1884, the officers f "»r the ensuing year are to. be elected. Let there be a full attendance. Ezba C. Nowem. Sec’y. The ostrich is an expert swimmer |