Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — TARIFF LETTERS TO FARMER BROWN. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF LETTERS TO FARMER BROWN.

80. 10. Does Protection Increase Wages? Dear Farmer Brown: We saw last week that protection is not necessary to prevent money from “flowing emt of the country,” since trade consists in exchanging commodities for commodities, and we are only too glad to send away our surplus commodities which we cannot consume, in order to get others which we can consume. That notion of preventing money from flowing out of the country is the protectionist’s error No. 1. We come now to error Jfo. 2. The protectionists assert that the. difference of wages between American and European labor puts our manufacturers at a disadvantage in competition with European manufacturers; and that, in order that our manufacturers may be able to sell their goods with profit, they must have a protective duty on European products sufficient to cover this difference of wages. Here is where the protectionists in this country rest the weight of their case; here they make their fight. Hence the vast amount of rubbish that they give us about the “pauper labor of Europe,” “cheap, pauper-made goods,” and “men who eat meat only once a week.” To read this dreary stuff one would suppose that Europe were one vast poor-house. These people do not seem to perceive that they push their case too far. If Europe is so crowded with paupers, all the greater is our ability to compote with them. The man who is so poor that “he eats meat only once a week” is necessarily a very poor workman and produces less than a well-paid and well-fed laborer; for a man is like a steam engine—you must throw in fuel liberally if you want results. Are you afraid of the competition you meet from the poor-house farm? It is reported that an English officer in the Peninsular War snurred his soldiers on to the attack by saying: “Are you Englishmen, who eat beef, afraid of Spaniards, who eat oranges?” That the man who gets good wages and has an abundance of good food is the most efficient laborer is proven by the observations of the pains-taking statisticians. The claim of the protectionists that protection raises wages can be shown to be false in two ways: first, by taking as examples those countries which have protective tariffs and comparing them with other countries which have no protection; and secondly, by showing from the laws of production and distribution of wealth that protection cannot raise wages. First as to examples. When we select examples to support a statement, we must always have regard to the little words frequently used in this connection, “other ohings being equal.” The countries compared must themselves be equal, so far as possible, as to density of population, unused land, .and in other features not necessary to mention here. The protectionistscan never be prevailed upon to make such a comparison fairly and fully. They always insist upon,'-se-lecting our own country, with its vast amount of unoccupied land, and making a comparison between it and the densely populated countries of Europe, where there is no government land to be taken up, and wnere even the roadsides are seldom suffered to go to waste. Every man naturally prefers to work for himself, and as long as land can be had cheaply men will become land-owners, and thereby not only take their own labor out of the labor market, but they will become employers of other men, and thus further reduce the number of competing laborers who might otherwise seek employment in manufacturing industries. On the contrary, in a country which has so much unoccupied land in reserve the entire increase of population must find employment in existing industries, or, if possible, must create new industries. The countries affording an adequate comparison are such as England, France and Germany. It is a well-known fact that in “free trade England” wages by the day or week are much higher than in “protected” France or Germany. Protectionists themselves admit this when they are not discussing the subject of wages and protection. Only last winter a Philadelphia manufacturer of glassware confessed before the McKinley committee that the wages in his particular industry were twice as high in England as in Germany. If protection increases wages, how does it happen that Germany has not succeeded in getting wages up to the English standard? Nor will it do for the protectionists to answer that we have got ours up to the English standard and beyond it; for we had higher wages than England before we had any protection. Even when we were yet colonies we were paying higher wages than England, and were sending pig iron to that country and successfully competing with English iron makers, notwithstanding the fact that England at that time had a protective duty on iron. It is a fact which the protectionists themselves are fond of calling our attention to, that even in colonial days England prohibited rolling and slitting mills in the iron industry of America. The long-established concerns of England, with their “pauper labor” and protective duties in addition, found themselves unable to compete successfully with the free-trade American colonies and their dearer labor. Is it not, then, a very cheeky thing for the protectionists to claim that protection is the cause of *our higher wages? The only comparison that is worth

anything- between the wages of two countries is a comparison of the labor cost of commodities, not one of wages by the day or week. It is always this latter form of comparison that the protectionists insist on making. Of course, we pay higher wages by the day ,or week, but as our labor produces more than European labor, the actual labor cost of production is less with us than in Europe. An official report from the United States Labor Commissioner shows, for example, that the labor cost of producing a ton of steel rails from the steel bars in this country is $1.54 in one mill and $1.38 in another; that in England the like cost is $1.36 in one mill and $2.54 in another; that on the Continent of Europe the cost in several mills is $1.04, $2.51, $2.97, and $4.64. And now as to the second point, the laws which control the production and distribution of wealth. Everybody knows that it is an inexorable law that competition forces down prices, and nobody knows this better than the protected manufacturers who combine and form trusts for the purpose of stifling competition. The men who have commodities to sell want first of all to cut off competition from —not from some other commodities that are different —but from commodities of the same kind. The hatmanufacturer wants no competition from foreign hats, hence he asks for a protective duty on hats, not one on hatchets; and the manufacturer of saws cares nothing for a duty on eggs. Like competes with like, hats with hats, and saws with saws; shutoff competition from the outside on hats and saws and the home price will go up. But the laborer has no hats and saws for sale, nor any other commodities; he has only his services. If he refuses to sell his services at a satisfactory price other laborers stand ready to underbid him. There is no duty on labor; our ports are open to the mighty stream that flows in from Europe. The population is growing rapidly from the natural increase, and no part of it so rapidly as the laboring population. There is thus a rabidly increasing number of laborers offering their services in the labor market and obliged to sell their toil under the law of supply and demand. Where laborers are scarce wages will be high, but as the number of laborers increases competition for work grows sharper, and wages become lower. Like competes with like, and no protective duty on commodities ever prevented competition in the labor market Labor competition goes on all the same, and as no duties on commodities can prevent this competition of labor with labor, no such duties can raise wages. Nobody knows this simple fact better than laborers themselves, hence the enormous growth in late years of labor organizations for the purpose of enforcing their demands for higher wages. The regulations of these organizations are shaped with a view to preventing labor competition In no industries is the fight of the workmen for higher wages more determined and better organized than in the highly protected industries.

One of the most highly protected industries in this country is the window glass manufacture, the average duties paid on imported window glass being considerably over 100 per cent.; and yet the American glass workers have one of the most compact, well-organized associations among all our labor organizations. They have the most cast-iron rules for limiting the number of apprentices in each factory, in order thus to keep down labor competition among themselves. The owners of the factories want as many apprentices as possible, so as to increase this labor competition and thus make wages lower. On this point the workmen make a vigorous fight, and no increase of apprentices can be made without their consent. The workmen are too sensible to trust to the high protective duties on glass to keep their wages high. When the protectionists speak of increasing the wages of labor they forget that the word labor must include all the people of this country who work in all occupations, and that the number engaged in protected industries is very small as compared with those in nonprotected industries. The so-called “protected” laborers are hardly more than five in every hundred workers. Now let us suppose that protection; raises the wages oi five, or even ten, workers in every hundred. These higher wages are possible solely by reason of the higher prices which the mill-owners are able to charge for their goods on account of the protective duty. But even if we assume that all this increased price goes to the ten laborers, what happens to the other ninety laborers? They, are compelled to buy these goods at higher prices. Buy them with what? I With money. Where ao they get this ' money? By laboring for it. But if you make the price of goods higher, the labor of these ninety men will buy less , of them. In other words, you reduce their wages; the loss to the ninety men will outweigh the supposed gain to the ten, and the total result to the hundred men cannot possibly be a gain—it is cer- i tain to be a loss. I deny, however, that the ten men get any permanent advantage from protection; for, in the first place, there is no law which compels the protected manufacturer to divide his gains with his men; and, in the second place, even if protection should raise the wages of the ten, this increase could be but temporary, for some of the ninety would at once begin to bid for the more profitable labor. Thus the general tendency is toward a common level of wages, allowing, of course, for the differing degrees of skill and training required. Even if the Government, therefore, should vote a certain sum to be applied to increasing the wages of the ten “protected” men they would not receive any permanent advantage from such an appropriation, for a portion of the ninety would become applicants for work in the favored Industry. Competition for work would become very sharp, and the result would be that the employers would have to pay less and less from their own pockets, and the wages of the laborers would remain the same. You cannot raise the level of water in the bays and harbors without first raising the level of the ocean, and certainly you cannot raise the level of the ocean by raising the bays and harbors. I conclude then that of all the humbug claims put forward in defense of protection, the most transparently false and absurd is the claim that protection raises wages. Yours truly,

RICHARD KNOX.

Gun-barrels paid 10 per cent, under the old law; ( they now pay 45 per cent., which is an increase of 350 per cent Plain ivory buttons, which paid 25 per cent, duty under the old law, now pay 50 per cent