Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1884 — LABOR. [ARTICLE]

LABOR.

JTtee Reduetton of Wages Under Elgh Protective Tariff Duties. [Philadelphia Record ] In many of the protected industries Abe reduction of wages is still going on, while it is observed that there is no Corresponding reduction of the wages of skilled workmen who are indebted to the tariff for nothing but burdens. In a portion of the anthracite coal regions the wages have been cut down to what the miners describe as a starvation rate. Since the beginning of the year the reduction of wages of factory hands in New England has varied'from •10 to 15 per cent. Bradstreet’s review, quoted in the Record not many days ago, shows that in the rolling mills, the steel works, and the nail factories of the East an almost general reduction has taken place in the rates of wages, while there has been a partial reduction of the waves in these industries in the West While there has been a large increase in the nail-making capacity, a general strike against reduced wages prevails in the nail works of New England. In the window-glass trade production has been resumed after a long strike, and will continue until oversupply induces another reduction of wages or another strike. In other protected industries there has been little variation from the downward tendency in wages. These reductions of wages, with strikes and lose of employment in many quarters, it need not be said, have been accompanied by much distress among working people. In connection with this condition in the field of protected industry it is noted that greater reductions of wages have taken place in the East than in the West The manufacturers of the East are on the outer edge of the home market, while the tariff closes the foreign markets to them, and they are therefore the first to feel the effects of over-production. Cost of freight does not permit them to take their products far inland before they are met by the competition of the West, and cost of raw materials through the tariff will not let their products out. They are thus between two fires, and when the t crisis of over-production comes they must meet it with a reduction of wages. Hence a removal of the heavy taxes on the raw materials of industry is fast becoming a crying necessity with the manufacturers as well as the workingmen of the East, and all the sophistries ■of protection will not silence it. With busy manufactories in the rear to supply the home market, it is of small advantage to dwell on the ocean front

when a blind legislative policy will not permit the teeming products of Eastern skill and industry to reach the markets of the world. ’• Another significant fact in this reduction of wages is that it has not affected in the least the earnings of the skilled workingmen who are outside of the so-called protected industries. The carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, plasterers, and many other guilds of skilled mechanics have suffered no loss of wages, but, on the contrary, some of them are moving for an advance in order to protect themselves against the enhanced cost of the necessaries of living imposed upon them by the tariff. Protectionists noisily assert that their wonderful system maintains the wages ■of labor, and yet it can not keep up the wages of that labor which is made its especial care. By what sophistry will it be pretended that a system which cannot prevent the wages of ironworkers, nailmakers, coal miners, glassblowers, and the hand in cotton factories from declining to starvation rates, is the protecting angel that keeps up the wages of stonemasons, carpenters, blacksmiths, butchers, and bakers ? , In a general financial and industrious oriies like that of 1857 or 1873, reductions of wages, loss of employment, and depression are experienced in all industeries and nearly all pursuits. But in this partial disturbance of trade the depression runs along a certain line of industries that are under the protection of high rates of duty, while outside of this line there are ho signs of stagnation or uneasiness. How do the Pro-

tectionist champions account for the singular phenomenon? In the condition of over supply caused by the unhealthy tariff stimulus the workingmen in the protected industries are the chief sufferers, and yet it is in their behoof that this benevolent system was devised. The manufacturers can reduce wages, and thus obtain their commodities at cheaper rates, while waiting for a rise in the market, Whatever may become of their laborers, they at least are protected to a considerable extent in a market in which scarcity as well as overproduction is caused by law, if they can only wait until demand overtakes supply. But the workingmen, who cannot wait for a better market, must sell their labor for what it will bring, or starve. If they strike, with the market glutted with products under the tariff stimulus, they are in many instances doing what their employers desire. While the strike continues, production is diminished, and the tariff at the same time protects the manufacturers from competition. In this situation the workingmen, the “protected” workingmen, have the alternative of waiting without employment until another demand springs up, or of going to work at the reduced wages, unless in the meantime their employers send abroad and secure an ample supply of cheap labor. The workingmen of this country will not always be under the glamour of a false system, which plunders and degrades them with the hollow pretence of affording them protection. “The Electoral Commission declared” **-so Mr. Conkling is made to say—“that Rutherfraud B. Hayes has received the electoral vote of Louisiana. After the accession of Rutherfraud B. Hayes to the Presidency, he affirmed that Packard, who had received some 8,000 votes less than Samuel J. Tilden, was Governor of that State. If Packard was Governor, then Rutherfraud held his place by the most palpable fraud ever perpetrated.” This is fact; this is truth, and there is not an intelligent citizen of the United States who not share with Mr. Conkling the disgust, the indignation, and the shame which attach to the so-called Presidency

!of this wretched intruder at Washington. — Nero York Sun.