Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1888 — WAGES AND THE LUMBER TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

WAGES AND THE LUMBER TARIFF.

We do not hear much from the high taxes about the “pauper labor” of Canada. Can ;da is too near by and the facts are too easily accessible to make Canada a good place to locate “pauper labor.” — Still, we are given to understand that we must have h high tax on lumber for the protection of the tariff-blessed American laborer. There are a number of things that might be said about that, one of whic' is that a great number of Canadians work in our pineries.— American laborers are fin no way protected against their vheap labor. • But the thing that The Times desires especially to say at this moment ts that the tariff-blessed American lab< rer does not get a very large slice of the ben fit of the lumber tariff, even w en he is not crowded out by the Caradi >n laborer. A gentleman recently spent a few days in th > pine .timber portion of Pennsylvania. He found that the laboring men there as in other parts of the state, were in favor of high tariff; were victims of the prevailing epidemic in that state. The gentleman tho’t he would like to know about how much the laborers in the lumber region were benefited by the tariff, and ne instituted an inquiry which resulted in putting him in possession of some interesting information.

He got his facts from the men who “feed the machine,” and who imagine that the tariff enriches them. Here they are: The cost of material in twenty doors, inch to inch and ona-eighth, is $10; the cost of labor (one man at $2 25 and one helper at $1) is $3 25; the value of the finished product is $25. — Same number of inch and threeeighth doors; cost of material, S2O; labor, $3 25; value of product, SBO. Same number of one and threesi xteenths-ineh sash; cost of material $10; labor, $9 75; value of product, SSO. Same number of check-rail sash; cost of material, sls;labor,sll 37|;value of product, S7O. The value of product in excese of cost of imperial, i will be seen, is sls in the first instance, of which capital gets sll 75 and labor only $3 25. In the second instance the excess is S6O, of which capital gets $56 75 and labor $3 25. In the third instance the excess is S4O, or which capital gets S3O 25 and labor $9 75. And in the fourth instance the excess is $55, of which capital gets $43 62| and labor sll 37|. Ho v much good does ‘• ■e tr.nff i do the men in these mills and sow much would perfectly free trade hurt them? Doesn’t capital make enough to be able to stand all the loss that might result from nee t ■ ade and yet command the American market as entirely as it does now? —Chicago Times. The republican papers which have been bawling about Andrew Jackson as a high tariff advocate, should give their readers the benefit of the following extract from his farewell address: “lhere is one safe rule, and that is to confine the General Government rigidly within the sr here of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or i np< se taxes except for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution; and if its income is found to exceed these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the “bur ens of. the peopie so far lightened.”

Gov. Hill, of New York, on Monday signed the bill abolishing hang ngfot all murders committed aft.-r Jan. 1, 1889, and substituting death by electrio ity therefor. The bill provides that the prisoner sentenced to death shall be immediately conveyed to one et the State’s prisons and there kept in solitary confinement until the day of execution.

Cleveland, Thurman, and tax reform enters the canvass assuiedof success.