Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1888 — Labor In Europe. [ARTICLE]

Labor In Europe.

Correspondence Chicago Inter-Ocean. You are, in my opinion, sound on the tariff question, and if you have any friends who are “on the fence” send them over here where, if they will study the conditions of the British- laboring man, they will soon see the necessity of K>tectingour home industries. The ndon laborer is fairly well paid, as he gets about $2 where our American laborer gets $3. The provincial workman, however, does not fare so well, as his wages average but little more than half as much as the American —say about three-fifths. Now the cost of what they eat forms the great problem here, for it is their main expense, and it is a fact that they do not live over half as well as their "American brothers. Meat is so expensive that they only get it once or twice a week, while fruit —well, an American workman eats as much fruit in a week as an Englishman does in a year. They spend less for rent and get correspondingly less for their money. What they wear costs much less here, although they dress very common as compared with our people. Our American laborer may be said to be a prince compared with people doing the same work here. Now I find this due to two causes. First, competition with the almost starving masses of continental Europe, and, secondly, to overproduction. The products of Belgium, Hollaud, Germany, France and Italy can be found here in nearly every shop, and England is to-day largely at the mercy of a people not as well paid or as well fed as her own. These nations are to-day competing with England in nearly every

market oi the world, and are cutting into her sales abroad to sycb an extent as to produce an over production here. This condition of trade wjth the present assured failure of th? crops induces the Britisher to look to the success of the Democratic party in the United States as their only relief, and as viewed from this standpoint, the political issues is “free trade versus protection.’’ How an intelligent laboring man or an American manufacturer (and their interests are mutual i cun vote the Democratic ticket with its present free trade principles, is to me an unsolved problem. If a large proportion of the earnings of the workman were paid out for goods from Which the Government derived a- heavy revenue, the case would be it is, lie buys sparingly qf cltWvof goods, leaving the -.wealthy ancWrairly well-to-do. class of ’peoplp taapay ftffly four-fifths of the tarjff Hoping I may be pertnitled to return and cast a vote for a party whoje battle cry is (bf should be)->.‘‘Protectibh for’ American homes and industries,” I remain, yours for protection. T-X.