Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1896 — “Why Is This So?” [ARTICLE]

“Why Is This So?”

Under this caption the Chicago Inter Ocean gives the free trade democracy a nut to crack. “A daily paper published in New York,” says the Inter Ocean, “recently filled 138 inches of space with adversements from ‘males’ who were in search of situations, and 23 inches with those of employers who desire to hire hands. That is to say, for every vacant place there were six applicants. Why is this so? * “A correspondent of the American Economist gives some figures that elucidate the cause of the present condition of enforced idle-

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ness ujflkted. Sjatxes. During the quarts oftlie year ending Match 31, 1890. tfiSsimports' of woolen goods frqmjtbe Bradford (England) district; vtera of the value of $4,797,775. This was the last quarter preceding tlje operation of the Me Kinley tariff. During the quarter ending March 31,1894, which was the last preceding the repeal of that beneficent aot, they had. shrunk to $1,310,010. Nearly, $3,500,000 of American money previously sent to Europe in payment for woolen go.odß was paid to Americans for production ‘of like goods during one period of three months. This is at the rate of an increase of $14,000,000 a year to the , wage fund,, for woolens alone. No wonder that work was plentiful and wages high during the protective era, “During the quarter ending March 31, 1995,/ the first three months of operation of the Wil-son-Gorman tariff, the imports of woolen goods to the United States from the Bradford district were the value of $6,947,740. Daring the first three months of democratic tariff the people of United States paid $5,637,730 more to British workmen, and by consequence, that much less to American workmen, for woolen goods only, than during the last quarter of the operation of the McKinley tin iff. This is at the rate of more than $22,000,000 a .year of loss in one branch of American manufactures. “Therefore this is so. Therefore six men are bidding for one job. Therefore they who once were deluded by the cry. ‘Tariff breeds trusts,’ are finding that free trade does not breed trust in the grocery stores, nor work that makes a request for trust needless.”