Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1908 — "LABOR COST" PLEA [ARTICLE]

"LABOR COST" PLEA

Discredited by History and by • Present Day Facts. MONOPOLY’S “LAST DtTCH.” Hod. John De Witt Warner of New York Writes on the Tariff Issue In This Campaign—Wages Higher Because of Labor’s Intelligence and Country's Resources.

According to the Republican plat form, the "true principle of protec tlon” requires “such duties as wil equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries.” The addition of “a reasonable profit” is new in the history of tariff discussion and Ride feasible from any standpoint. If a protected American industry is put on a perfectly even footing with foreign competitors by equalization of the costs of production through tariff duties it certainly can find no Just basis for any further demand. Let us consider for a moment the claim that protective duties are needed to equalize the costs of production. This term Is generally understood to refer chiefly to “labor cost.” It is said that without “protection” our labor will be reduced to the level of underpaid foreign labor. The pretexts for the establishment of our high tariff were the greater costs of production caused by the civil war Internal revenue taxes and the Insuffi dent supply of labor left after the raising of Immense armies. These pretexts having been snatched from the employer by the abolition of the internal revenue taxes except those on spirits, by the disbanding of the armies and the introduction of foreign laborers on an enormous scale, the protected interests have rallied about the labor cost of production, not because, of the Inherent strength of this position, but because It is their last ditch. There is reason to suspect that it is because -they have felt more and more the Shallowness of this fortification, that they have now attempted to eke out their defense with the false and awkward breastworks of “reasonable profits.” The argument founded on differences In labor cost has no basis of fact to support it. The allegations on which it is based are simply not true. The question is not as to the daily wage of the American laborer as compared with foreign rates of wages, but as to the labor cost in a given product, and there is admittedly no considerable “protected” industry in w’hich the efficiency of our labor and the enterprise of our inventors have not reduced the labor cost well below that In any competing foreign industry. Alexander Hamilton, the first apostle of “protection” In America, said nothing of higher wages or “standard of living” as a basis of a permanent protective policy. His plea was merely for a temporary inducement to capital for the purpose of accelerating our development along natural lines. He explained that the somewhat higher wages then paid in America, especially in agriculture, would become equalized with European wages by importation of the best and cheapest labor from European factories. He even argued that numerous factories would make it possible to utilize the work of women and young children more completely thpn was possible in agriculture. Later, in like manner, Henry Clay asked for a tariff in the interest, not of labor, but of manufacturing employers He pointed out that ingenuity in the construction of machinery and adroitness in its use, together with large natural stores of raw materials, more than counterbalanced the lower wages of lal»or in Great Britain, “if they really existed." After capital had thus had its “temporary Inducement” the United States in 1846 abandoned the theory of “protection,” reducing duties toward a revenue basis, and in 1857 most of the remaining “protection” was removed. The high tariff of the civil war, adopted chiefly to allow the manufacturers of the country to get back from the people at large such taxes as the former had been compelled by the Internal revenue system to pay for the support of the government, was accompanied by another measure about which little was said—the contract labor law of 1864. Under the guidance of Mr. Sherman in the senate and Mr. Morrill lu the house this labor law. demanded by the manufacturers, was put through. It provided for -official advertisement throughout Europe for laborers to come to the United States and gave assistance to American em ployers contracting for laborers abroad for the Repress purpose of reducing wages herc. scr tbab the ypterars of our armies returning at the <lose of the war found their jobs gone and were forced to compete with contract labor.

This brief historical outline shows that the “higher wages” argument as the basis* of the demand for tariff duties is merely an afterthought laid bold of as a drowning man snatches at a straw because nothing else is left. Does “protection” raise wages? As already noted, wages are not high here when amount and quality of product are (taken Into account. But the real question in, Why are money wages high here? In 1773 Adam Smith, noting the difference in money wages between British and American workmen, concluded that “plenty of good land and liberty to manage their own affairs in their own way seemed to be the two great causes of tlje prosperity of all new countries. Every colonist,” said he.

r »has more land than he can possibly rultlvate. He is, therefore, eager to secure laborers from all quartei3 nod to reward them with the most liberal wages.” Alexander Hamilton noted-the same fact and explained it in the same way, while Clay, reasoning on the same that, though wages might ‘Till on account of the importation of foreign labor, yet “the extent and fertility of our lands constitute an adequate security against an excess to manufactures and also against oppression on the part of capitalists toward the laboring portions of the community”—in other words, that our unprotected industries would always be a protection to labor against the oppression of protected capital.’ In late years wages have advanced more rapidly in Great Britain than to the United States, and the same was true in Germany until her tariff legislation of recent years. This result, coincident with extremely high and increasing “protection” in America, suggests one of the open secrets of the general advance in wages. Another is suggested by the fact that the constantly improving physical and mental condition of the world’s workingmen has made their hands and heads more efficient in production and themselves more plucky to insist upbn an equitable share. In this country, about the only one whose'lnhabitants have never as a whole been hungry, whose children have never as a whole been wretched and whose women have never as a whole sunk under unwomanly labor, the result—the greatest prosperity since the sun shone upon Eden—ls due to our free soil and the of Providence, neither of which waited for or came through.the custom house. JOHN DE WITT WARNER.