Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1895 — ADVANCE IN WAGES. [ARTICLE]

ADVANCE IN WAGES.

BITTER DOSE FOR CALAMITY. HOWLERS TO SWALLOW. Workingmen Are Sharing in the Returning Prosperity—A Tremendous Nail in the Coffin of Protectionism —Tin Plate and Crockery Industries. A Long List. The following is a partial list of wage advances for the single month of April, 1895. Nearly all of these are in industries that are less protected than they were one or two years ago when wages were being reduced in them. Where the percentage of advance is not given it is because the reports usually said that the rates of 1893 or 1892 had been restored: ... p er cent. Firm and location. advance Pakachoag Worsted Mills, South Worcester, Mass Moses T. Stevens & Sou, 3 mills In X. H 15 Thomas Dolan & Co., Philadelphia, Pa... .15 Globe Iron Works, Cleveland. Ohio 15 Wholfender, Shore & Co., Cardiugton, Pa.. 5 Washington Mills, Lawrence, Mass Bricklayers Co., Philadelphia. Pa Belding Bros, tc Co., silk, Rockville, Conn.. 5 Wllllmantlc I.lnen Co., Wllllmantlc, Conn. .5 American Linen Mills, Fall River, Mass...— Silk Ribbon Weavers, New York City

Worumbo Mills, Lisbon Falls, Me ..10 Fall River Mills. Fall River, Mass 10 G. Cotton Co., North Grosvenordale, Conn.lo E. W. Chapin & Co., Chapluville, Muss. ...10 U. S. Bunting Co., Lowell, Mass 10 Lakeside M’f'g. Co., Leicester, Mass 10 U. S. Cotton Co., Central Falls, R. I. .5 to 10 All Cotton Factories, Full lllver, Muss. .VM All Cotton Factories, New Bedford, Muss.. 5 Qulnebang Dun. Cos., all In Conn B. S. Stevens, Qulnebaug, Conn 15 Slateh W'oolen Co., Webster, Muss John Chase & Sons, Webster, Mass 10 Vassalborough Mills, Augusta, Me 10 Burke Hull. Co., Rowley, Mass 10 Weybossett Woolen Mills, Olueyville, It. I.— Dyervllle M’f’g. Co., Dyerville, It. 1 5 J. M. Stearns & Co., Williamsport, l’a. ,1c yd Win. H. Grundy <fc Co., Bristol, Pa 5 Llnwood Mill, North Adams, Ma55..'....,. Woolen Cos. Mills, Westerly 10 Dodge Davis M’f’g. Co., Bristol, N. H 20 Poland Paper Co.. Mechanics Falls, Me.l2-20 Cocheco Cotton Mills, Dover, N. H 5 Williamstown M’f’g., North Adams, Mass..l2 N. Pownul Co., North Adams, Mass 12 Beaver and Eclipse Mills, N. Adams, Mass.l2 Merino Mills, Olneyvllle, It. 1 10 Tyson Clirome Works, Baltimore, Md...,10 Eddy Electrbt Co., Windsor, Conn 10 Salmon FallsM’f’g.Co., Salmon Falls, N. 11. 5 Jesso Eddy Woolen Mills, Falls River, Mil3B 10-15 S. K. Wilson Woolen Mill, Trenton, N. J.. 10 Edwards M’f’g. Co., Augusta. Me... ..4...10 Three Cotton Mills, Suueook, N. H A. L. Sayles & Sons, I’aseoag, It. I. (off).. 5 Norwalk Mills Co., Norwalk, Conn 10 Stotts Mill, Lowell, Muss 5 Paige Tube Co., Warren, Ohio 10 Minnesota Iron Co., Minneapolis 10 Tube and Boiler Works, Oil City, Pn 10 Hamilton & Ludlngton, Iron Mt., Mich...— Ntolmls Mills, Tnrklln, It. I a. Morristown Woolen Co., Morristown, Pa. .10 Usion Mills, Moosup, Conn Stirling Woolen Mills, Lowell, Mass Clonk makers, Cincinnati, Ohio 25

TJmt the rising tide of prosperity did not stop in April is evident from the following list of wage advances during the first three days of May: Firm and location. Per cent. Bell, Lewis, Yates Mining Co., Dubois, Pa. per ton 30-40 Helvetia Mining Co., Dubois, Pa., per ton Minn. Iron Co., Minneapolis 10 Iron furnaces, Newcastle, Pa 30 Sheridan's Woolen Mills, Seneca Fa 115.... Foundries, Cleveland. Ohio 10 Farwell Worsted Mills, Central Falls, , k I yard Mahoning Valley Works, Youngstown, Ohio 15c per day Tomas Furnace, Niles, Ohio 15 Phoenix Iron Works, Meadville, Pa 10 Cotton Mills, Springvale, Me 6*4 Probably 250,000 workers are now getting bettor wages than six weeks ago, and probably 100,000 more are now bn strikes for higher wages, with fair prospects for success. This is bad medicine for calamity howlers, but they will have to take it until they cease their croaking. Comparing April, 1895, with April, 1892—the banner McKinley year—we have here a list of fifty-eight recorded wage advances, two of which (those at Fall River and New Bedford, Mass.) affected nearly 50,000 workers, whereas in April, 1592, we find no wage advances recorded, but instead a long list of wage reductions. The Reform Club published a list of wage reductions in protected industries only, during the first two years under the McKinley tariff law. This list contains forty-eight Instances of wage reductions in April, 1892. But for lack of space we would print it and the present list of wage advances in parallel columns. It is not, however, necessary, as neither of these lists will be disputed, even by the greatest friends of McKinley ism. They will try to account for wage reductions, in 1592, and for wage advauces now, by the “unusual conditions” in each case, and will continue to asert that their theory is entirely sound, although, in both cases, the facts not only would not fit it, but were exactly the reverse from those promised. Tin Plate and Crockery Industries. The protectionists have no trouble in proving the-benefits of protection and ithe evils of free trade. If an industry is prosperous it is because of protection; If it is not prosperous It Is because of free trade. Page 221 of the American Economist of May 10, is de- / voted to showing how prosperous the tin plate industry is under protection; page 222 to showing how badly off our crockery Industry is under free trade. It Is true that the tin plate industry

has been wonderfully prosperous since Wilson made a 45 per cent reduction in the duty on tin plates— reduced from 2 1-5 to 11-5 cents per pound. It is also true that the crockery industry is not as prosperous as it should be—since Wilson reduced duties from 20 to 45 per cent, or an average of only about 35 per cent But what is the inference to be drawn from the tin plate and crockery industries? Is it not that the crockery is not as prosperous as the tin plate industry, because the duty on crockery was not reduced as much as the duty on tin plate? There is more in this theory than most protectionists are willing to admit. Thus the crockery industry has enjoyed high protection so long that it has become full of trusts that sustain prices, lower wages, hold factories idle, and discourage inventions aud improvements. If the protection duty had been abolished or reduced sufficiently to smash the most of these combines (the present reduction has smashed several) and to compel a complete reorganization of the industry, it would soon begin on an independent basis and would not only prosper but, because it Would turn out more goods at lower prices, would give employment to more labor than is now employed. The tin plate industry being a new one

and having gotten its start not mainly because of protection but because of great improvements, had not time under McKinley duties, to get into solid petrified trusts that would make it one of the protected fossil industries. If the duty on tin plate be not reduced greatly during the next four years, it will have ceased to keep pace with its foreign competitors and will not, under ordinary circumstances, be more prosperous than the crockery industry now is.

Where Protection Ends. The legitimate outcome of trying to protect all industries (and thereby protecting none), Is shown in an editorial in the American Economist of May 10. Home and Farm, of Louisville, Ky., asks the very sensible and pertinent question: “Why should we protect sugar raisers against pauper labor and not protect the cotton planter against the pauper labor of Egypt, and the wheat grower against the pauper labor of Russia and India?” To which the American Economist makes the following reply: “There is no reason why we should protect the sugar raiser from pauper labor and not protect the cotton planter. As a matter of fact, the wheat grower is protected and always has been under a policy of protection. The cotton planters of the South have never asked for protection; they have always claimed that they did not need it; but wo believe that the time is not far distant when they will find,that the increasing imports of foreign cottons are tending to cheapen the value of American grown cottons. We want no pauper products—no pauper prices —no pauper labor. Kentucky will be more prosperous with protection for all its industries, but nothing can be gained by narrow-minded local selfishness. Home and Farm should know this.”

The Economist believes in “going it whole hog or none.” It knows that duties on such articles as wheat, corn and cotton do not, and cannot, protect farmers. No duty on an article that is exported largely and imported not at all, or but slightly, can be protective, unless the producers of such an article can form a trust and maintain prices at home above those for export. This most manufacturers can do, and many of them have done but it is next to impossible for farmers to combine in this way. Consequently they get only bogus protection from their duties. But supposing it were possible to protect all industries alike by protection; and supposing moreover, that the benefits of this protection were distributed evenly among all engaged in these industries—including even the. factory hands who never receive any protection benefits, and never hear of them except at election time—what would be the final effect of protection? It would be that each industry would bo projected at the expense of all other industries and what one would gain by protection would be lost by the time it had paid its share of protection to all other 'ndustries. It would, be exactly like a. game of poker in-which "6ach participant had lost exactly as much as he had won—not counting time as any value. It is impossible for everyone around a gaming table to win more than he loses. It is equally impossible for every industry to gain more than it loses by protection—unless we accept as true the idiotic statement that the foreigner pays our tariff taxes. There is nothing iu protection when it : s applied “all hands round.” There is much in it, for those on the inside, when applied to certain industries. Let us not deceive ourselves about it!—Byron W. Holt. 1: