Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1894 — WAGES AND BUSINESS. [ARTICLE]

WAGES AND BUSINESS.

AS AFFECTED B¥ THE TARIFF LAW, Opinions Direct From Many of the Leading Manufacturers of Indiana on the Prospect—Business Declining and Wages Ditto. South llend Tribune. A few weeks ago the Tribune in order to get a full, free and reliable opinion from different manufacturers of the state as to how the new tariff law affected the industries of Indiana sent out the following personal letter o f inquiry. “Wbat effect, present, and prospective, will the new tariff bill have on your wages and general business?” _ This brought many candid replies among them the fo’lowing which the voter, especially the workingman, will do well to read carefully and see how Democratic tinkering of the tariff has affected his interests.

A big plate glass manufacturing company of Kokomo says briefly and to the point; “With tariff reduced 30 per cent, manufacturers have all reduced wages from 16 to 20 per cent.” From the Goshen Woolen MilU Company, through J. L. Kerstetter, secretary: “We are offering goods at a price based on free wool and a reduction of 20 per cent, in wages. What the demand will be later on we have no idea. The p. and d. congress has so diminished the purchasing power of the people that it is impossible to have as good business as formerly.” » . The Pennsylvania Glass Company, of Andersori: “The fffect of the new tariff bill will be the"cause of materially reducing wages of blowers. The manufacturers are asking 30 per cent, reductions. Prospectively it is a little too early to say wbat iffect it will have.” The Marion Flint Glass Company, through R. E. Reed, business manager, says: “While wg are not inclined to at the present, go into a general discussion which the reply to your inquiry would call for, we would simply state that we do not think the recent chang's wili have any very greatly beneficial results. There is no question but what if rnamlf*cturers find they cm not. compete with foreign made goods, they must reduce there selling price and as this reduction can not be taken from the profits, there having been no profit in the business, for some two years p vst, the workers must accept less for their labor.”

In about the same strain writes the Anderson Flint Bottle Compan): “If, is vet too soon to be able to say just what effect th' new tariff bill will have on our business. While the class of goods we make are not directly affected, yet we oxject we will fe 1 its effects indirectly by the lowering of duties on a clegs of bottles we do not make, The duty on. soda ash was not lowered, thus leaving us top ly as much for our raw material as under the old tariff. We think that it will certainly affect the wages of our workmen. ” The Ball Bros/ Glass Manufacturing Company, of Muncie, through F. C. Ball, president: “The wages of the common laborers, carpenters, etc., excepting glass blowers, has declined during the last year about 25 per cent. The glass bottle blowers’ scale has been reduced for the coming blast 15 per cent, below the scale of the last blast. This, we consider, all due to the tariff reduction.”

The wool dealers and woolen goods manufacturers are outspoken in their opinion that the new tariff is a decided injury to the wool interests of the United States The following from C. E. Geisendorff <fe Co, wool dealers and manufacturers of flannels, etc., Indianapolis, is couched in no uncertain language: “We are of Jhe opinion that the passage of the free trade tariff bill will squelch the wool-growing interests in the United States, and our money will go into the hands of foreigners for wool. Our people cannot '•ompete with such countries as China, Russia, India, etc., where families live on $25 to SSO a year or starve. Woolen goods are so low and unietsetled that manufacturers are at a loss to know what to do. When things are adjusted to no-tariff price#, wages will undoubtedly have to suffer. If manuficturerß in this country get raw material and wages as cheap as in foreign countries, they can compete, not otherwise. Our opinion is that the passage of the free trade bill was an outrage on American workingmen. It is simply t king the bread out of their mouths and giving it to foreigners in whom we have no interest.” Here is another of the same kind from a big wool dealing and woolen manufacturing firm of the state who say it is neither pleasant nor profitable to be advertising their lack of busiue;s, nevertheless, in telling the truth they must say that because of the expected change in the tariff their sales have been only about half the usual amount this season. Then add: "We have only run our mill three daj Bin the week since Jan. 1. We have made no change in wages yet,

but expect to be compelled to do so or go out of business, but the thought is so painful to us that we shall wait until we are sure where we stand before doing so. It, is important that you should keep it before the people that 90 per cent, of the woolen man-! ufacturers of tne country are opposed to five wool, and ihat if the senators from the wool growing states h >d advocated protection for the wool growers as faithfully as did the senators from the New England states, they could have secured protection as well as the rice farmer of the south.” The Seymour Woolen Company, byLouis Schenck, president and manager, now engaged in filling contracts under the workings of the McKinley law, which was in the company’s favor, and enabled it to do business at fairly remunerative prices, without reducing the wages of operatives to any extent, s-es great uncertainty in the future and cannot tell what the harvest will be when new contracts are made next December and January. “Any lower price we should be compelled to make in our product,” Mr. Schenck says, after stating that 'axes, insurance charges, machinery, d\e stuffs., have not receded much in cost, “would be at the expense of labor, which is not pleasant to contemplate.”