Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1892 — Wages and Labor Cost. [ARTICLE]

Wages and Labor Cost.

The more one knows about Republican protection the less one believes in it, and a thorough knowledge of the subject would put to flight the last particle of faith in this humbug still left among the people of the United States. The most absurd pretense as to protection is the pretense that It enables protected manufacturers to pay the difference between the wages of American and foreign workingmen. It does not, because in most protected industries there is no such difference as the Republican protectionists pretend to discover. The fact is that in most of these industries American labor is the cheapest in the world. You will not believe this If you read only Republican newspapers, for they take care to compare only the day wages of Americans with tho day wages of foreigners, and in most trades, whether protected or not, American day wages are higher than European day wages. It is easy enough, however, to show that this is not a fair method of comparison. One often hears a hustling housewife say that she’d rather do a piece of work herself than leave it to a careless child or an unskillful, lazy hired girl. Every farmer knows that many a good harjd is cheap at double the wages of an idle, shiftless fellow. The woman who knows how to do things finds It cheaper and less wearing to mind and body to do them herself than to have them done by a person who will do them so badly that they must he done over. The fanner would rather pay thirty-five dollars a month to some hands than twenty dollars toothers. What is true of the household and the farm Is true of the factory and the world in general. There is no mystery about this, and any man who wishes to understand it may do so and may come to understand it so well that be can teach it to others. Charles 8. Hill, a Republican protectionist employed In the department of state, declared on oath before the tariff commission' that In 1872 5,250,000 hands in the United States produced $8,000,000 worth of manufactured goods, while in the same year 5,140,200 hands in England produced only $4,000,000 worth of goods. In other words, American labor, measured by the amount it produced, was worth nearly double what English labor was worth. Thus the American manufacturer in that year would have paid nearly 100 per cent, more wages than the Engl! h manufacturer and still have been better oil as to profits. The New York Pi ess, a high protectionist paper, declared afew years ago that the lalior cost in a ton of paper made at Bchuylervllle, N. Y., was $4.50 less than the lalwr cost of a ton of paper made In England. The American paper maker, however, was paid an average of $395 per year, while the average of the English paper maker was considerably less. Thirtyseven men at Sohuylerville produced 11,000 pounds of paper dally, or an average of nearly thirty tons each. The average daily product of English paper makers was only thirteen tons each. According to The American Economist, organ of the Republican protectionists, tha average product of each manufacturing operative In the United States was, In 1850. $1,105, and In 1880, $2,045. The average annual wages lu the one case was $255 per year, In the other SBOO per year. That Is. labor received 28 per cent, of the product In 1850 when the tariff averaged 24 per cent., and labor received only 24 per cent, of the product in 1880, when the tariff averaged 48 per cent. Yet the tariff was raised to raise wages. Let every Democrat and every man who thinks of becoming a Democrat get a firm grip on tho idea that wages should not be compared by days’ pay, but by the amount of labor cost In a given product. Don’t let any Republican protectionist fool you with talk about the pauper labor of Europe. Remember ours is the cheapest labor in the world, because It is the best.