Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1889 — Labor Troubles and Protection. [ARTICLE]

Labor Troubles and Protection.

Chicago News: It is notable that at the present time the three countries of Christendom in which protectionists are the most strongly intrenched politicallv—the Unifed States, Germany and France —are those v tn whih labor is in the most restless and distracted condition. in the United States there are and have been great strikes in the iron, coal, textile and building industries. In France there is dissatisfaction on the part of nearly every department of labor—an ominously disaffected political condition among the proletariat In Germany the strike outbreak of the labor of the country is so general that it woulJ appear to be an organized co-operation of the trade centeis. in Hamburg, the masons, carpenters and plumbers are ail out, on the refusal of their employers to .nciease their wages. At Eberfieid the manufacturing works are cl os d unu the men are out. At Nuremberg the carvers and wigmakers are out! At Berlin the masons at a late meeting decided to inaugurate a general strike in the building trades. The prominent feature of the German industrial situation, meanwhile, is the rapid augmentation of what ary called ‘conventions” —another name for trusts —among manufacturers in order to artificially peg up prices. The German tariff acts having been conceived for tne protection of agriculture as well as manufactures, the effect has been to increase the cost of raw material to manufacturers and of living to artisans and agricultural laborers. Hence, on the one hand thbse strikes, and on the other such depopulation of certain rural districts of the country that it has been seriously proposed to import Chinese and Indian coolie labor to work the deserted farms. And yet during the last'presidential campaign our high tariff journals were continually calling attention to the prosperous and happy effect of Germany’s increased duties on imports.