Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1892 — Wages in Building Trades. [ARTICLE]

Wages in Building Trades.

That statistical evader of justice, Mr. Peck, has produced some more figures in which the protectionists seem to find great comfort. They purport to show that wages in the building trades increased from 1890 to 1891. As a matter of fact, wages in the building trades have been going up for many years. No one, however, but a headlong, thoughtless, open-mouthed swallower of protection lies would ever suppose that carpenters, masons and people engaged in kindred pursuits owe their prosperity to the tsxes which the Government levies on them. There is no law on the statute book, and even Mr. McKinley would not undertake to invent one, that taxes houses imported from Europe, or roofs, or , stairs or paved streets or ceilings. The art of driving a nail or of carrying a hod is not taxed. And, as we allT know, there is no duty on carpenters or engineers or lathers or stonecutters. Tne wages in building trades have had a tendency to advance for at least half j a century, and the great reason for their ! going up is becauso the men are more their own masters than are the hands employed by a trust or a single protected capitalist. Tho mind that supposes that a bricklayer or a stair-builder can be protected by a tariff which increases the cost of his living, itself needs a protection that 1 it is far beyond the power of any statute to grant. Perhaps such a mind may take its first step in intelligtn o by grappling with this problem. A correspondent of I tho World, who has the courage to sign j his name, A. Murcrofti, writes as foli lows“In this city carpenters are getting j $3.50 a day of eight hours; in Brooklyn ! they get $1.25 per day of eight hours; i in Jersey City $3 per day of nine hours; in Hoboken they get $2.75 per day of nine hours, and in Westchester County $2.50 per day of ten hours. ” How can the tariff account for these differences? It is an easy problem if tackled cautiously, and if no protection professor is consulted. —N. Y. World.