Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1890 — Wages Already Aftected. [ARTICLE]

Wages Already Aftected.

The plea made for the McKinley hightariff bill is that it is necessary to help labor. The wages of labor must bo made higher, although thirty years of protection have failed to yield satisfactory results in the direction of increasing viages. So we now have the McKinley bill for the benefit of labor. The first effect of the bill has already been reported. In the city of Buffalo, N. Y., there is a manufacturer who uses a certain fabric in the manufacture of his goods. This fabric is bought in New York from a commission merchant who imperts iit from England. The Buffalb manufacturer got this cloth heretofore at 68 cents a yard. This cost was made up as follows: English manufacturers price, 30 cents per yard; duty (equivalent to 110 per cent.), 33. cents; profits and expenses for handling, 5 cents. This was a high duty, but not high enough tp satisfy Maj. McKinley; hence he makes the duty in his “domestic bill”

140 per cent, to protect American labor Now note the swift result The Now York commission merchant informed the Buffalo manufacturer that he would have to add nine cents a yard to the price of the fabric in order to cover the Increased duty, expecting and fearing that ho would thereby lose a customer. But the Buffalo manufacturer promptly accepted the situation. The • New York merchant expressed* surprise that the manufacturer could so soon accommodate himself to the enlarged expense. In reply to this the Buffalo man writes as follows to the merchant: “You were somewhat surprised that wo could afford to pay the additional nine cents a yard for cloth, but I prepared our work people for it, and to-day, by making a cut equal to ten per cent, on their wages all around, I have covered the amount qnd turned them all Into good, sound Democrats. That, I take it, is as good as a Yankee could do.” That Is where the McKinley bill draws Its first blood from labor.