Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1888 — DUR INDUSTRIES ARE NOT INFANT [ARTICLE]

DUR INDUSTRIES ARE NOT INFANT

A High Tariff an Unnecessary Burden on the Workingman. (From a speech by Senator Saulsbury of Delaware.] It is said that our industrial establishments cannot compete with manufacturers abroad. This was the plea for tariff nearly 100 years ago, wuen tariff legislation was commenced in this country. The plea at that time was doubtless a good one. We had at that time but few industries of the kind —but little capital invested therein —with no skilled labor employed in manufacturing and but little experience in the business. Becan eof this condition competition with the older and better regulated establishments of Europe was hopeless, and Congress in the early legislation to' secure revenue by impost duties wisely sought to adjust them in a manner that would aid our then infant industries in their struggle for existence so far as it could consistently with the necessity for revenue. That necessity, however, was the acknowledged limit of the taxing power, and no one thought of imposing higher taxation on importations than was necessary to raise the revenue required by the Government. Within that limit discriminations might properly be made in adjusting the details of a tariff so as to aid incidentally the few manufacturing industries then existing. That policy of incidental protection in the adjustment of duties was continued in the early legislation on the subject, and properly continued when necessary, because the average rate of duties then imposed was low and insufficient to aid some of the industries in the competitive struggle in which they were engaged. But how different are our manufacturers situated to-day. There is no lack of skilled labor, and in machinery we excel all other countries. There is no lack of capital or want of experience, as formerly, in the business, and without protection other than that afforded by a revenue tariff most of our manufacturing industries could compete at home and abroad with similar industries in any part of the world. Some of the newer industries, in which labor is the principal item of cost and in which machinery cannot be used to any considerable extent, may be an exception, and no one would hesitate to grant them necessary aid in the adjustment of the details of a tariff limited to the demands of the Treasury for revenue.

Such a tariff would require an average rate of duty of not less than 25 or 30 per cent., which would more than pay the difference between the cost of labor here and in England or any country in Europe and leave a fair margin of profits on the capital invested without lessening the wages paid to operatives.

Again, the advocates of a high tariff insist that it is necessary to insure proper wages to labor. They have become ashamed to ask longer for protection to infant industries. The most of our manufacturing establishments have grown to maturity and are no longer infants needing the paternal care of the Government on •their own account; but the plea of protection is interposed in the name of the labor employed. This is a specious plea, and if .honestly made would command respect; but everybody knows it is not honest. It is an attempt to continue unnecessary taxation under false pretenses, in order that the manufacturers may make larger profits, not that the laborers in the mills and factories may obtain higher wages. The manufacturers and all other employers obtain their labor at the lowest possible price, and this will continue to be the case whether the tariff is high or low. Has labor shared in the profits of the manufacturers, enormously increased under the present tariff? No, sir. Employes have -often b een compelled to submit to a reduction of their wages, and sometimes compelled to strike in order to maintain prices that would enable them to support their families. Labor is not too well paid in any avocation iq life, and no better paid in mills and factories than in many other pursuits, and I should be glad to see the day when it could command •constant employment and a just return for its value to employers; but high tariff will never secure this result. Its proper remuneration depends upon conditions wholly independent of tariff laws. Such laws may, however, and do affect the cost of living to the laboring man as well as everybody else, and the higher the duty which they impose on the necessaries of life, for which his wages have been expended, the more seriously do they embarrass him. He can buy more for his wages when duties are low than when they are high. If you desire to improve the condition of the laboring man of the country, whether engaged in mills and factories or on the farm or in other pursuits, make the tariff as low on the things he is compelled to buy—his food, his clothing, etc.—as the ■condition of the treasury will allow, but do not deceive him by the pretense that his earnings will be increased or his condition improved by maintaining a tariff which adds to the cost of everything he has to buy. If high tariffs increase the wages of the working people, how is it that in Germany and other European countries having such tariffs wages are lower than in England, which is practically a free-trade country? Can our Republican friends, upon their theory of high tariff's and high wages, solve that problem? Tariff laws, whether they impose high or low duties, do not affect wages, but they do increase or diminish the cost of living, and for that reason ovary workingman in the country is interested in having the tariff as low as possible.