Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1912 — LESSON ON TARIFF [ARTICLE]

LESSON ON TARIFF

HOSIERY SCHEDULE SUPPLIES CLEAR ILLUSTRATION OF ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS. PROTECTION RATE TOO HIGH Labor Cost of Production In This Country Little More Than in Europe Notwithstanding Difference In Wages.

We have received the following appeal for light on the tariff: “Is this the Democratic idea of the tariff: That if the tariff is taken off hosiery the American product will be undersold by the German because it can be produced cheaper in that country than it can !n the Un'ted States? Would this be true of all things now carrying tariff?”

So far as we are aware, the Democratic party has never made any declaration on hosiery, but we are glad that item was specified, because it affords a peculiarly clear and intelligible illustration of the practical effect of the tariff. Hosiery worth a dollar a dozen pairs in Germany is taxed under our tariff 60 cents and 15 per cent., or 75 ceDts. Omitting freight and commissions and incidental charges, this hosiery, then, could be sold here for $1.75 a dozen. The census bulletins show that in hosiery the wages constitute about one-fourth of the value of the product. On domestic stockings worth $1 76 a dozen, therefore, the total labor cost would he about 44 ceuts. The position of the manufacturer, then, is that where he pays 44 cents to his working people he gets 75 ceuts of protection. The Democratic party does not believe that he needs any such rate of protection. The labor cost of production in this country Is little more than It is in Europe in any Hue, and in many lines it is much less. In the last fiscal year we exported more than a billioD dollars’ worth of manufactured goods. In July more than half of the exports were manufactured goods. Of course, if It cost more to produce manufactured goods here than In Europe we could not export on any such scale as this The employes In our machine shops get better wages than the men in foreign machine shops, and yet we exported machinery to the value of $115,000,000 in the last fiscal year. Of course, the Democratic party does not believe that lowering duties would close our mills and throw all our people out of employment. If it did it would not advocate reducing duties. The reports of the tariff board show, what students of economics knew before, that the labor cost of production is often lowest where wages are highest. There Is a book on the efficiency of labor, or the relative costs of labor where wages are high and where they are low, by Jacob Schoentaoff. There la a volume of lectures on “Work and Wages” by Lord Brassey, and another book by hint on a similar subject, which, of course, have no specific reference to our tariff, hut are all the more valuable for that reason. They are dis cussions of the greater economy oi high-priced labor, ixtrd Brassey’s father built railroads in every part oi the world, and he found that it made little difference in the cost of construction whether he paid a shilling in India, four shillings in France or six shillings in England; if there were any difference the cost was lowest where the wages were highest.