Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1891 — IMPORTED INDUSTRIES. [ARTICLE]

IMPORTED INDUSTRIES.

WHY A GERMAN MANUFACTURER DID NOT BUILD HERE. Tho High Tax on Raw Matoriala Fr ghtrit»d Him—This Tax Would Krep Him Out of the World's Market—Pauper Labor and Pauper Goods. The high McKinley duties on many kinds of goods have already compelled somo European manufacturers to set up lactories in the United States to get their part In the tariff spoils, and still others will doubtless be induced to open branch establishments here. Republican organs print news about these imported industries with many expressions of satisfaction, and point to the importation of industries as one of the best effects of tho McKinley tariff law. But they do not reflect that when a mill-owner in Europe goes to the trouble and expense of shipping his machinery to America, building a new factory and putting it into operation, there must be some special hope of gain hold out to him. Protectionists assert that the tariff lowers prices; but clearly the foreign manufacturer does not come hero to get lower prices for his goods. Ho comes for higher prices—for McKinley tariff prices. An interesting case, however, is that of a Germau manufacturer of woolen goods, who came here to look over the ground and went home without deciding to build a plant in America. His reasons for not building here are highly interesting from a tariff standpoint. The manufacturer gives the reasons why, after careful observation in his travels and upon ripe reflection, he concluded not to transfer his industry to this country. The first of these ho declares to be the high duties on raw wool, yarn and dye stuffs, which make it hard for American manufacturers to compote in the home markets with their European rivals, notwithstanding the heavy duties on woolens, and impossible to secure an outlet for their surplus products in neutral markets. While the American manufacturers of woolens are absolutely and inexorably confined to the homo demand, their competitors in England, Germany and France, with free wool, have tho world for their customer. While this manufacturer found the high duties on wool a great hindrance to cheap woolen manufacture in tho United States, he did not find near so great a difference in wages as the protectionists have often asserted to exist between this country and Germany. Ho says that, after personal inquiries in the industrial districts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, he finds that the average rate is scarcely 25 per cent, higher than in Germany. Ho asks what this amounts to when the woolen products are subject to duties rauging from 80 to 100 per cent. Yet the advocates of protective spoliation incessantly repeat the fiction that the McKinley tariff is so adjusted as only to compensate American manufacturers for tho difference in wages in this country and in Europe. The fact is that when the actual production of a day’s labor is taken fi to jonsideration the wages in the woolen factories of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are lower than in France and Germany. This ha 3 been conclusively shown by experts who have examined the processes of manufacture in this country and in Europe, and have made comparisons as to tho actual labor cost in a yard of goods. Such a comparison the protectionists will never make. Thoy always take tho wages paid in Europe by the day or by the week, and compare them with the daily or weekly wages in the United States. Yet it must be clear to even a half-intelligent mind that the only valid comparison is that of the labor cost in the yard, the pound, etc. On this point the great contention of the protectionists as to the “pauper labor” of Europe breaks down completely; for if we can make a yard of cloth with less labor than they can in Europe, it is folly to talk longer about the “pauper-mado goods” of Europe.