| Show WAGES AND DUTIES The bureau of statistics is a branch of ihis government presided over by Commissioner Commis-sioner CARROLL D WEIGHT who recently madea report to Congress from which we select a few facts The average labor cost of mining a ton of bituminous coal in the United States as shown by returns from 126 mines is S97 1 cents J The average cost in five Canada mines is 7 92 cents in eight European mines 737 cents in eight English mines 759 cents per ton The extreme difference iaS cents per ton in the wages paid in England and in this country is compensated equalized adjusted ad-justed or whatever 3 ou choose to term it by a duty of 75 cents a ton on imported coal Similarly the difference in wages paid in mining a ton of iron ore in this country and Great Britain is 274 cents which is also compensated by a duty of 75 cents per ton on iron ore The wages paid at the furnaces in the production of a ton of pig iron in this country as shown by returns from 70 furnaces fur-naces in the north ana 20 in the south are 157 and nearly S154 respectively The labor cost of a ton of pig iron in Europe Eu-rope is 607 cents and in Great Britain US3 cents The extreme difference between the I labor cost in Europe and in this country bS cents is equalized by a tariff of 072 per tonThe The average wages in one ton of steel I II rajls in two American mills is L4G1 in seven European mills 2637 and in two English mills L955 so that the labor in the rolling mills costs less per ton of product I pro-duct in the United States than abroad The entire labor cost of a ton of steel rails isis is-is 1159 in this country and 1132 in Europe Eu-rope but to offset this difference of 27 cents the duty on steel rails under the new law is 51344 These examples show how necessary our present tariff is to protect our laborers from competition with the pauper labor of Europe The pretense that the tariff is levied in order enable manufacturers to pay high wages is mere nonsense |
