Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1895 — WHY PROTECT THEM? [ARTICLE]

WHY PROTECT THEM?

MANUFACTURERS CAN UNDERSELL ENGLISH COMPETITORS. A Conclusive Tariff Argument—Protectionists Now Afraid of Chinese Labor—lmmigration and the Tariff —Don’t Sell Tour Sheep Now. As to Certain Tariff Duties. For some time past in almost every Weekly issue of the American and the English trade journals of the iron and steel industry reference has been made to sales of American iron or steel products in England or In neutral markets which were formerly supplied by English manufacturers. We have directed attention to many of these sales during the last twelve months. They show that our manufacturers are selling in the English market wrought iron tubes, cast iron pipes, hoop iron, tiles, shears, saws, and wire for the English makers of screws. They also show that in Canada and some other neutral mrkets our manufacturers are overcoming or already have overcome the competition of the English in several important branches of the industry. All of the products thus gold abroad —in England, the British colonies, or neutral markets—without the help of any protective duty, and sometimes under a considerable handicap of ocean freight charges, are protected here at home by duties which are high, even in the new tariff. These duties are needed, the followers of McKinley say, for the defense of the domestic manufacturer against sales in this country of English goods which the domestic manufacturer undersells in England itself. Our neighbor, the New York Tribune, published a few days ago an article showing “how the great Pittsburg pipe mills are underbidding their competitors across the ocean.” The transaction in question was the reported sale of ,250 tons of wrought iron tubing in London by Pennsylvania manufacturers. Our neighbor should explain why-the present duties on wrought iron pipes (25 per cent.) and cast iron pipe ($13.44 per ton) are too low to afford adequate protection to the American manufacturer as against importations of wrought iron tubes and cast iron pipes into this country, and why the American manufacturer, who undersells his English competitor in South America, Canada, France, and England itself, needs to be protected here by any duty whatever. We should like to know whether Gov. McKinley and those who agree with him would now, if they had the power to do so, increase the present duties on wrought iron tubes, cast iron pipe, hoop iron, galvanized iron, saws, files, boiler plate, tank plate, wire, and other iron or steel products which our manufacturers are selling abroad at prices which the English manufacturers cannot meet, as in Canada, where the English have already lost the greater part of their old trade, and even in England, with respect to some of these products. A glance at the statute wjll show that the present duties on these goods are high. Would Gov. McKinley and his party make them higher, and if so, why? Would they reduce them? Why not? Why is any part of them required, even from the point of view of the McKinley protectionist? New York Times. Afraid of Chinese Labor. Great lamentations are going up now from the protectionists all over the land; 400,000,000 of slaves, they say. are to compete with our workingmen. China is to have open commerce with the rest of the world. Unless we increase the protection duties on Chinese products our workingmen will be forced to work for Chinese wages. The future looks blue to all disbelievers in trade and commerce. It is true that according to the terms of peace with Japan five Chinese ports are to be opened to commerce and that Japan and other nations will be permitted to open cotton factories and other industries in China. But what will happen? Is modern progress and invention unable to compete with hand labor and antiquated methods? Not much! European and American goods will find big markets in China as soon as the Chinese have learned to make something to exchange for our goods - for, of course, it would be impossible for the Chinese to take our goods unless they had something to offer us that we desired in exchange. We must take some product of theirs or they cannot take our goods. In any case, both we and they would benefit by an exchange of products. The Chinese would produce such articles as they are by nature best fitted to produce and we would do the same. They can produce rice very cheaply. We can produce machine-made goods more cheaply. We Will exchange our sewing machines, clocks, stoves, shoes, tools, etc., for their rice, tea, silks, etc. Our mechanic will produce goods in one day that will exchange for as much rice or tea as will be represented by ten days’ labor in China. He can by exchanging with the Chinese get more rice for one day’s labor than he could get in any other way. The more rice he.will take from the Chinese the more of his goods can the Chinese buy. This will make trade. It is not unlikely that our exports to China will increase from $5,000,000 a year, as at present, to $25,000,000 or $50,000,000 in ten or fifteen years.

Even supposing that after twenty or thirty years the Chinese should be able to manufacture a considerable portion of the cotton goods of the world, would we Americans be better or worse off because of the change? Would we not get our cotton fabrics much cheaper than now? Would not many more be employed in making something to exchange for these Chinese goods than were thrown out of employment because a part of our cotton industry had left Us? We would certainly gain more than we would lose by such a change. It is natural and well that each individual and each nation should produce those things which he or it can most cheaply produce and get by exchange those things which he or it cannot produce most cheaply. Hence all barriers to commerce and trade—■whether mountain ranges, Chinese walls, or tariff walls—are an obstruction to civilization and progress. The removal of any of, these barriers makes

life easier to millions of people on this globe. We need have no fear of competition with Chinese labor. Xn>migration and the Tariff. The New York Press Is doing some taU calamity howling. It says that “two years of tariff reform have reversed the tide of immigration into the United States, which in one year had reached 730,000, and now our net gain in population from abroad for the last year is only 1,696. Our outgoing refugees from bad industrial conditions last year were 312,771 and our incoming immigrants were only 314,467.” This Is indeed a bad showing, for which some party is responsible. It occurred, however, not under Democratic, but under Republican laws—the McKinley bill being in full force during the last fiscal year. Since the Wilson bill has been operative, wages have begun to rise—at first slowly, but now more rapidly—and the tide has turned toward this country. Canadian mill operatives who left New England by thousands during the dull McKinley-Sherman period of 1893-4 are now coming back in flocks. The Press is correct in saying that “Nothing more clearly indicates the relative superiority of countries than the tide of immigration. It always flows toward the place of best opportunities for getting a living. A little more of tariff reform and the United States will be reduced below the water mark of Europe.” The fact that so many people were leaving this country for Europe in 1893-4 shows that, all things considered, wages reached the European lev-' el during the McKinley period. When wage earners considered the rate of wages, cost of living and opportunities for employment and enjoyment in Europe and America, they concluded that it was, in 1593-4, about “six of one to a half dozen of the other.” There being no duty on either emigration or immigration in any country, labor is free to flow back and forth at will—which it has been doing. This fact serves to show what a farce tariffs are as a means of “protection to American labor.” American labor has absolutely no protection (except the trouble and expense of crossing the ocean) from foreign labor; for, as the Press explains, the moment the “opportunities for getting a living” are better here than abroad, foreign labor begins to flow this way. Tariff duties are on goods and all the “protection” there is for any class goes to the manufacturers or producers of these goods. Tho case is very clear.

Women in Pittsburg Rolling Mills. Protectionists who have found delight in pointing out the superior condition of American workingmen and in emphasizing the barbarity of employing women and children in the coal mines and iron works of Great Britain may be Interested in this item, Which has recently come from Pittsburg: “Women as operatives in tinplate mills in America have proved a success in the large new plant of the Monongahela Tinplate Company, at South 15th street, the past week. Two weeks ago Mrs. Hattie Williams came to the manager of the Monongahela mill and asked for work because her husband was ill and could not support the family. Mrs. Williams was put to work separating plates as they came from the rolls, and so proficient was she that five young girls were given her as assistants, and she was made forewoman of that department. The company now proposes to put 100 girls and women at work in the mill within the next few weeks.”

The Impossibility of competing with Welsh tinplate manufacturers, with their low-priced labor and their and children operatives, has been one of the stock arguments by which American manufacturers have supported their demand for a highly protective tariff on tinplate. With a duty that is equal to nearly 60 per cent, of the foreign cost of ordinary grades of tinplate and nearly 30 per cent, of the price in this country, the manufacture of tinplate has proved so alluring to protectionists with money to invest that already the cry of over-production is heard in the land. Now comes the descent to the lower plane of the muchdespised Welsh manufacturers, and the employment of children in the mills is followed by the introduction of women in the sheet rolling mills. The Monongahela mill referred to in the paragraph above is essentially a protectionist enterprise, of which Henry W. Oliver is the president— Philadelphia Record.

Give the Goose a Chance. A good many workmen in different parts of the country, impatient at the delay in an increase of their wages, are threatening to strike. As a friend to the workingmen In many times of their need, the World feels impelled to repeat the familiar laconic advice of Punch to those about to marry: “Don’t.” There are unmistakabte indications that the industrial goose is getting ready to lay golden 6ggs for labor. To strike now may not kill the goose, but it might frighten her from her benign purpose. With wages rising on all sides, trade reviving and the wheels of Industry humming again, it is inevitable that wages will advance in alliines where they are now too low. Competition—the demand for labor—will attend to that, with a little .quiet and persistent effort by the labor unions. But to inject the element of uncertainty and fear into the industrial situation at this time by threatening to strike would be very bad policy. Be patient a little longer. Give the goose a chance. —Newi York World. Don’t Sell Your Sheep Now. Educated by events, some of the protectionist journals are now advising the farmers to hold on to their sheep. But we do not observe that they make any apology for their misleading and panic-breeding articles last year in which they advised the farmers to send their sheep post-haste to the shambles. The farmer who edits his farm on the strength of what he reads in the Republican newspapers is a man much to be pitied—Philadelphia Record. It is believed by microscopists that the highest powers of their, instruments have not yet revealed the most minute forms of animal life.