Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1884 — TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF.

A Revenue vs. a Protective T A riff.

BY W. D. BYNUM.

PROTECTION TO AMERICAN LABOR. Protection is no longer claimed for our manufactories on account of tjieir infancy. - They have passed three score and ten, and are entirely too old to longer plead infancy. — They now ask protection for American labor, asserting that, they can n )t employ the same at current wages and compete with the pauper labor of Europe. “ what sophistry will not selfish interest*-: resort to!” It is not the Highest priced labor that is always the dearest, nor tlio lowest priced labor that is always the cheapest. In Russia the price of labor is lower than in almost any other country. The serfs work in the mines for seven cents a day, and yet it costs as much to make a ton of pig iron m Russia as in England. In fact, Russia could not afford to sell iron in competition witli Englane in her own country without protection, notwithstanding labor costs nothing, comparatively speaking. English laborers were taken to France, and paid 81.20 a day to work upon railroads, while Frenchmen were employed at 62 cents a day, and yet, upon actual measurement of the work done it was found that that done by the English cost the least. Slave labor was the dearest labor the South ever employed. &

Free, intelligent Jabor, at rm mmierative tcages is the cheawl e»t tiftfe A&tn be Men, to work well, must be ther hungry nor mad. They must be hopeful, not despondent. It will not be denied that American labor, whether iia tive or adopted, is the best in the world, and that, at higher wages, is cheaper than that of foreign nations. American, labor does not come in competition with the poorest paid labor of Europe, except in agricultural pursuits. Our greatest competitor in manhprot ?ction against English manufacturers that our industries are clamoring for. An investigation of the wages paid in England and in this country, and a comparison of the labor performed by the workingmen of these nations, will prove the advantages one set has over the other. The following table gives the comparative rates of wages paid in England and in the United States, per week:

'ruinws AV ku Hi TKADKB. England. Chicago. Brleklaycru, - . $8 06 tin 50 Bookbinders, - - 7 20 12 00 Bricklayers. - - 860 825 CanlnetmakiTS, - . 8 04 0 76 Carpenters nd Joiner*, 7 80 k 80 Painters - - 4 75 7 76 Plasterers. - 9 18 12 00 Shoemakers, - - 738 ~ IS 00 Total per week, s6l 61 SB2 05 Total average per week, $7 70 % sio 25?; Difference In average, 2 55 %

Supposing the same difference m the price of labor to exist in all other industries as in the average of those shown in the above table, and we have a comparative difference in the price of wager T& the two countries of about onefocrtHj but for safety we will call it one-thibd. .Now, if American labor performs 1 a third more work than English labor, then it is as cheap, and the other advantages we have shown toexi-t in favor of domestic manufactures need not be <aken into acconnt. The Indianapolis News of February 16,1884 contained an interview with O. R. Olsen, Superintendent of the Indiana Bolt Works, in which he said: ‘T have had experience in the matl er, and I say that a foreman of a shopin America gets as much work, and of a far better quality,out of ten American workmen as is get by a

foreman in England out of fifteen, so that if the pay of the American workingman is three dollars a day against the Englishrrall’s two dollars, it also follows that he has done just three dollars’ worth of work to the other’s two dollars’ worth. In fact, whenever skilled labor is needed we can undersell the English. * ** In the rolling mills and puddling furnaces, where muscular strength fir needed rather than skilled labor, the tariff may perhaps have some effect in raising the workingmanV wages. Not much, though, fir if the foreman nays 40 per cent, per diem more for work he gets 50 per cent, more nei diem more in labor than his English rival does.” The census- shows I hat the average production of American workmen in 1880 was 81,900 per head, while the average production of English workmen was only S7BO per head. In other words, an American workman produced $6.22 by his labor while Ilia Engliish competitor produced $2.50 a difference of $&- 70 in favor of theAmeiicau workman, while the difference in wages was leps than^l.oo. While the difference in the price of labor is less than 80 per cent., the difference in the value of the same is over 100 per cent. It is certamly too plain that although the pf'ice of American labor is higher, it is cheaper than English labor, and that American manu facturers after paying the increased price, still possess an advantage in labor over their foreign competitors. But, for the sake oi argument, let us grant that our English competitors do possess an advant age over our manufacturers in jjp.ec of *abor and that it is. ffeoe«sa*y 1 o pvu.fce< ;f tig* wa *s of our workingmen.

Labor is butoue item in the expense in carrying on a manufacture of any kind, and is but a small expense. The principle items of expense are land, buildings, machinery and raw material to work. Ex-Senator McDonald, in speaking of this before the Democratic Editors of Indiana in 1882, said: “But the cost of labor forms but a fractional part of the cost of manufacturing, and. in most cases, but a small fraction. I have a table before me, prepared bv the present Oornmis sioner of Mints, Mr. Burchard, a Republican, giving the proportionate cost of labor in most of the leading articles of manufacture in tills country, from which it appears that in textiles in general, labor is Wi per cent., materials 621 pm* cent., in cottons, labor is 22

per cent.,materials 63 per cent.; in woolens, labor 17i per cent., materials 62 per cent.; in silks, labor 16 per cent., material 64 per cent.; in steel, labor 17 per cent., material 33 per cent.”— From this it will be seen that the highest propo tionate cost of labor, as compared with capital, is 22 percent., and the lowest 16 per cent. The difference in the cost of labor, generally, we have shown, is not over 30 per cent., or at greatest over one-third. The difference, then, in the cost of manufactured articles, would be one-third of the total cost of labor, which, in textiles, wo’d be about 6£ per cent., in cottons 7} per cent., in silks, 5£ per cent., and in steel 5f per cent Granting, therefore, that domestic manufacturers pay their laborers one-third more than their English competitors, to give ample protection for this difference would not require »ore thin 10 per cent, and yet we have a protection averaging 42 per cent, 32 per cent, more than the increased cost of labor which our manufacturers have to pay. Who gets this 32 per cent.?— Does American labor get it? No! it all goes to the manufacturer, or, at least, whatever portion of it he wishes to use and yet be able to control the American market. Who pays

this 32 per cent? American labor’ How stands the ac jonnt, then? Labor receives "he benefit of 10 per cent and jays back to the manufacture or what it consumes, not ony the 10 per cent., but 32 per ;ent. in addition. No manuacturer can show where ie paid to labor one-half he protection given him. they have been loud n their professions of love for he laboring men, they have, n many instances, reduced heir wages below the prices jaid in Europe. The Philadeljhia Record of a recent date ontainedthe following: ‘General William Lilly, of the. Leligh.informs a Chicago hew«laper that he is for Blame, jut that he and the rest ot iis party in Pennsylvania will upport any candidate who is rnposed to the leveling down )f our woi king classes to the evel of the poor classes of Continental Europe.” The jrofound sympathy of General Lilly for our ‘’working •lasses” will noi be questioned but he need not go out <ide of his valley to contemjlate the position of the paujer labor of Europe. If lie ias not witnessed it lnmselt ie will find a description of it n the same number of the >ress which contains the inerview from which we quote. A corresdondent writes: Laborers at the mines are eaid as low as sixty cents a lay for ten hours work; some ret seventy cents, and others ;ighty and ninty cents, but he average is about seventy >ne cents. * * * Strange to ;ay, this labor wliich receives ixt sent- a day and lives on joiled potatoes molasses and mead, is very high protected, ter every ton of oar dug out >f the ground the American aborer is supposed to receive eventy-five cents a day hrough the tariff, besides the >ay for his labor, to protect dm from the half starved lajor of Continental Europe, vfow, as he digs about a ton a lay, and gets sixty cents, .vhat has become of his sev-enty-five cents worth of promotion?” By the census of 870 the laborers engaged in aakmg pig-iron numbered altogether 27,554, and their vages amounted $12,400,000. the capital employed was reurned at $56,100,000- The luty on pig iron at the time vas nine dollars per ton. The trice of iron in this country •,ompared with that inported, liowed that those engaged in his (industry took the full )enent of the protection. The jroduce of the home manuacturers was 2,000,000 tons, on vhicli the tariff amounted to 518,000,000, or $5,600,000 more han was paid for labor. In >ther words the tariff paid to he men engaged in this inlustry equalled to the whole imount paid out to them for abor, and left a surplus of 55,600,000. In 1880 the capital jmployed the manufacture of vool hats was £3,615,830, and he number of persons employed 5,470. The total amount <f wages paid during the year yas $2,893,215, and the amount 4 materials used was $4,516,74, while the total product vas $§,516,596- allowing six per ent. interest on the capital uvested, making $216,949, hese manufactures made a let profit during the year of 1,620,658. After paying inerest on the investment, the -roduct of each hand emtloyed was $624.10; of this sum 327.82 went to the laborer, nd £296.28 went to the manuacturer. The laborer receivdof his work but little over alf, while the manufaturer jok the remainder. What mount of the $296.28 pocketdby the manufacturer was rotection? The tariff on 00l hats, upon an average, /ai and is, seventy per cent, ad yet we see the manufaclrer taking from the laborer marly 100 per cent of his /agesIn the manufacture of wors 3d good the capital employed i 1880 was *20.374,013, and ie number of hands 18,803. he amount of wages paid □ring the year was *5,683,027, nd m* amount of material -ted $22,013,628. Adding six er cent interest on capital ivefted, ?1,222,442, and we ave a total expenditure for ibor, material and interest, . luring the year, of *27,919.086, •' V.N *. • d * *

leaving a net profit to the manufacturers of *4,630,856. The droduct of tlie labor of each hand, after paying interest. etc. was *5484>2, of which the laborer gets $302.24, while the manufacturer takes the balance, "246.28. The tariff upon worsted goods avereged about 90 per cent., but little more than the per cent, of wages retained by the manufacturer.

Mr. Thomas G. Sherman, in an address before the tariff reform meeting, held at Detroit in June, 1883, said: “According to the returns published by Mr. Secretary Frelinghuysen, the average annual of'all men, women and children employed in English cotton mills are *251, they working only fifty six hours h week. The annual average wages of the same class of work people in our American cotton mills were, in 1880, only s244—they working an average of at least six ty five hours a week. As their wages was reduced 20 per cent, long ago si nee 1880, the result is that during the last year, the cotton operatives in America have been working sixty-five hours a week for *195 a year, while the cotton operatives in England have been working only fif-ty-six bou] s a week for *251 a year. Thus, in one of the largest and most highly protected manufacturers in this country, the rate of wages is 22 per cent, lower than in England; the hours of labor are 18.> per cent, longer, and the cost of living 20 per cent, more.

Mr. Giles B. Stebbins, in a recent work, ’Tlie American Protectionist’ Manual,” says: “Robert P. Porter, late a member of the tariff commission writes from Leeds, England, a great center of woolen mill, to tlie New York Tribune, under date of January 24,1883, and gives a list of the wages of twenty grades of operatives in those mills as computed from their account books. * * * The English wag 8 range from §7.50 to $2.50 (i -r boys.)” Mr. Porter is an extreme protectionist, and L s figures are as partial as i could consistently make th ,a. But let us compare these figures with the wages paid to employeys in the same labor in this country in 1880. There was employed in the manufacture of woolen goods during the year, 86,504, and the total amount of wages and salaries paid was §25,836,392, an average of §298,44 paid to each hand. Allowing higher wages for those who were under salaries, it is but fair to say that the wages of those ranking as laborers did not exceed 90 cents a day. As to the wages of boys in this country, employed in manufacturing establishments, the public journal recenily contained the following item:

BLACKBTONii, Mass., Feb. 28. "Thirty bock-boys, at the factory yestenluy, on acoant ofthe redaction of wages from forty five to thirty-elgLt< Genus i erday, etraek. Their action caused the shutting down ot the whole machinery, throwing five 1 undred operatives out of employment.’ Duriug the discussion ofthe knit uood bill in Congress, 1882, Mr. Carlisle In speaking of the wages paid to operatives in this industry said: "At Cincinnati, th re were 421 hands employed, and the total wages paid amounted ti $56,425, being $172.70 per year, er $3.32 per week, which is only 55V4 cents p er day: at Chicago the number ofhandß was22s, and the wages paid amounted to stlo,9tifl, being $127.17 for the year or $2.45 perweek, which was 41 cents per day ; at Detroit the number of hands was 118, aud the wages stl,Mo, which was an average of 110.10 to each hanf for the year, That is $2,18 per week or 85&cent per pay. It is donbtfhl whether Enl sh Manufacturers arc not paying, in most industries, better wages than are paid in tthis countiy. It is** singular fact that in all the leading industries uot protected the wag-.s of operatives are higher than in those enjoying the greatest protection. Take the industries of railroading, agriculture, foundries and machine shops, hardware and carpentering, which paid a daily qverage of $1.55. $1.27 $1.51, sl.ll and sl-61, wad contrast them with the five indastries of cotton, silk wooled kuit. goods, iron steei and Iron mining which enjoyed the greatest protection. Th'- average daily wages paid the operatives of these industries daring the same year was 81 cents, $1, 17 cents' sl.Bl and sl. The protection given to the latter anring the year, ranged lrotn 45 to 90- per ce> t' aud yet the wages of operatives in the former were 50 per cent, higher Mr, Frank Gessner, secretary of the wlndonglas« workers’ branch of tho Kni hts of Lahor at Pittsburg, in January, said; "Last year tne average monthly wages paid in Belgium were SB6-87. They have been in New Jersey as low as s6l, and if the present reduction of wages ie accepted iu Pennsylvania the men here will earn about S4O per month. About flirty men bard returned to Belgium in the last few mouth u der guarantees from the govsrnraeet that their wages should be higher than they are here, i hey can actually make hfgner cash wages today In Belgium, in the glass Industry than tli. v can here with a protect vc tiiriil of 4f per cen * Addition pioois could he furnished that the firuiended Interest o. maiiuta tales Am rican abor is hypocritical and mercenary. They care nothing fer the benefi of anyone except themselves. They employ st the lowest wages and oprrate their mills with the cheapest* labor. Where boys will answer they will uot have men; where women ane girls can be used, at reduced compensation, men, aid even boys, may beg iu vain for work. Now and then one may be found with a generous and warm heart, but as acl »a they are cold, selflsh and ext cting. Motry-mak-ing is iheir business, and they calculate their profits and losses with an interest and anxiety that are seldom displayed by any other -class. They have, with’ their contests In labori lc the las: few years, given some proofs of their real sentiments and feelings and some evidences of theirjrifection for Amer can labor. A lew years ago the manufacturers of lumber in Michigan reduced tne wages of their hands, notwithstanding ‘.hey were protected to the ex tent of $3 per thoramd fe< t. Their laborers

would not submit to a reduction, and a strike was mane. The mauatactan* at occe went over to Canada and Imported from the lumber regioas of that Dominion the very labor which they were protected against to aupply the place- of the strikers.

Mr. ltankiu the head of ihc Kplgfcts of Labor organized in the Pittsburg district, in antwer to an inquiry from a Sew York Herald rep rter, said: -Some years ::go a cutlery mill was start ed here, with several hundred imported English operatives. The manufacturers n. d all the protection they wanted, anti imported their labor besides |lt mouths, however, before they proposed to Cat down wages, and the eu.- , ployes struck, and what did these protected proSrietors do bnt go and get about four hand ed hinamen to flllihe r places." Hon. W. P. Fishback. a leading Republican of Indiana, in an open letter to Hon S. J. Pecle, member qf Congrass from the Indianapolis district, last Jnlv, said: ‘The Fourth of Jttlk dispatches from the vlllege Suncook, X. H , weie edifying. The owners of certain infant industries in the rillege of Sunhook have recently imported by the Inman line # steamers several hundred Swedes, who are described In the dispatch as paupers and jai! birds. These ‘paupers and jail oirds’ were brought to this coin try to take the place of American workmen, for whose protection certain ,awe have been enacted. Thesese ‘paupers and jail birds’, snltln? the air of the Fourth of July breeses and not content wi»h tne very low wages paid them by the owners of the highly p-otected Industrie-, began tofleave the villege otonucook, turning their laces westward: when lo! their tasK-masters sloaed them, kept them imprisoned, and drove them to their work as black men wore driven to lo the cane aud cotton fields before the war. * * * Another interesting fact has come to light. The town of Liverpool. 0., is the seat of a great crocke y ware iudnstty. By the recent law you raised the tariff on the ar‘icles made there. Tbe increase was demanded and "raided-iu behalf of American workmen. The owner ofthe crockery industry have adopted a method of dealing with their dissatisfied employes which is said to workwell.Tncir laborers are required to rent tenements owned by the monopoly, which are occupied as so g as the workmen remain in the employ of their propri tors. When tne workmen ask for higher wages they are promptly ejected from the tenements to make room for chei-per .workman. So, when it was settled that the tariff would be increased, the patriotic owners of the protected industry * discharged their American workmen, drove them from their homes, and supplied their places with cheap foreign labors imported for that purpose." Wlion the eleven associates purchased of Bessemer *he exclusive right to use his new process for making stoele, by which the same was made, as cheaply as iron, they immediately secured by some infillenc«, a protection of 100 per cent , for it was said, the benefit of American labor. In addition to this they secured the tucorporati n of a provision m the pacific Railroad charters that the same should bj constructed with raiis of American manufacture This, too, it was said, was to give employment to American labot. But no sooner had the syndicate commenced tions than they iouud tliey could import pig iron and old rails cheaper han they could purchase them at home; so they rielibeately turned their hacks an their fe low American iron miners aud pig metal smelters, and proceeded to take advantage of the pauper labor of Europe by importing their iron. During the construction of some of ti.e roads. American labor upon the Pacific slope, was entire y supplanted by cheap Chiueoe labor. It is not sought by the recitatiwn of these tacts to array labor against capital, but simply to tear the mask of hypocrisy from the faces us these monopolists, and revea 1 to American working men their true leatures and natural characters. It certainly requires no argument to convince laboring men that capit 1 purchases labpr the same as any other 'ouimo-" dity, at as low paices as possible. D es any laboring man know ol an instance \vh re the wages of A merlcan laborers were raised above the price* paid in other trades-, by manufactures, or. Bccon t of the tariff: fur. Brassy well says: "There i* a maximum limit above which wages can not rise, aud a mimimum b low which they can not fall The minimum is determined by the coat of living arco-ding to the standard adopted by the people." That American labor has reached the minimum there can be but little do bt. In fact, it is usurious question bother our wonting men will be abje, at present, prices, long to support themselves and their families according to the present standard oi living.