Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1910 — TRUTH ABOUT WAGES [ARTICLE]

TRUTH ABOUT WAGES

The Democratic publicity bureau made a bold play for free trade on the argument that wages In England, under free trade, have Increased more than SO per cent In the last thirty years. Grant that English labor draws even double the wages of thirty years ago, what are present facts as to English labor? Here are some of the facts: One in three of the population of England is in poverty today. One in ten of the population of England is on the verge of actual starvation today. Whjat of wages In England, with all the vaunted increase shown in the last thirty years? One instance can be cited to indicate the difference between wages In England and wages In America. Where the American carpenter drew $1 In wages In 1907, the English carpenter, at Bristol, drew 41 cents and one mill. At London the carpenter In 1907 drew $0,491, where the American carpenter received a full dollar. The difference between $1 and $0.491 —a little more than 50 per cent —may be regarded, fairly, as the difference between the English workingman’s standard of living and his opportunity, and the living standard and chance of the American workingman; If free trade means that the American workingman must be satisfied with 49 cents where where he now draws down a dollar, then assuredly the American wage-earner wants no free trade, and the Democrats who renew advocacy of that played-out doctrine might as well shut up shop and cut out their publicity of fallacies.