Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1894 — The Cotton Mills Trouble. [ARTICLE]

The Cotton Mills Trouble.

, The great strike and lockout in the cotton mills of New Bedford and Fall River are due to a reduction of 10 per cent, in wages by the manufacturers. The publiG is interested in knowing if this trouble is in any measure due to the new tariff. The duties on cotton goods in the bill just passed are less, but not much less, than these imposed by the McKinley law. Shirts, in deference to Mr. Murphy, are to pay 50 instead of 35 per cent. Stockings are to pay 30 instead of 35 per cent. There have been slight reductions, however, on other cotton goods, and Senator Aldrich estitimated that the average rate of duty on manufactures of cotton under the new law would be about 40 per cent, instead of 57 percent., the average rate under the McKinley act. The new schedule was accepted a* satisfactory to the cotton manufacturers. Their Senators did not offer a word of opposition while it was passing the Senate, and were twitted cn their silence by Senators Dolph and Teller. Senator Aldrich, in reply, said that the schedule was “prepared by tho manufacturers of Fall River, so lar as tho price of cloth is concerned,” ana added that it “is perhaps the most scientific schedule that has ever been prepared upon the subject." He further said: “I think the committee deserves the thanks of the cotton manufacturers of the country.” Senator Hoar also expressed his satisfaction. Certainly the new tariff bill cannot account for the proposed reduction of wages. According to a correspondent of the Evening Post, writing Irom New Bedford, wages have been reduced and increased there without regard to the tariff. This statement is verified by a recent report of tho Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics. In ten years reductions of wages of cotton operatives in these two cities have aggregated ab iut 35 per cent, and increases have aggregated 221 per cent. Therefore, notwithstanding the Republican tariffs of 1883 and 1890, wages have gone down in the cotton mills of Fall River and New Bedford about 12! per cent. Another strange fact in connection with this proposed decrease of wages is that, according to the American Wool and Cotton Reporter of Aug. 23, there is “a perceptible improvement in the demand” for cotton goods. This journal advises against a reduction of wages, and truly says: “The cotton foods market as a whole is rather inependent of tariff letrislation. ” This is in line with Secretary Blaine’s report that the labor cost in manufactured cottons is less in this country than in England. According to the annual report of the Bureau of Statistics of Massachu- * setts for 1893, just published, the business of making cottons was about the most prosperous of all the industries of the State for that year. It used more raw material than in 1892. The value of its goods fell off less than 3 per cent. The number of persons employed decreased about one-quarter of i per cent., the amount of earnings .97 of 1 per cent., and the average earnings .69 of 1 per cent. The explanation of the proposed reduction in wages remains to be made. Certainly the tariff bugaboo cannot he raised when wages fell 10 per cent, under the McKinley law, as they did last September, and when they increased 10 per cent, after the great tariff refbrm victory of 1890.—New York World.