Show XOTES OX WAGJ3S The following extracts are from the St Louis GlobeDemocrat a Republican Republi-can protectionist organ The brief comments com-ments are ours A German artisans breakfast consists con-sists of coffee and bread his dinner soup made of water slices of bread slices of onion and a little butter meat once or twice a week soup cheese potatoes and bread with sausage and beer Germany is a country protected by a high tariff In many parts of Germany the hardest hard-est nut door work falls to the lot of women They plow and spade the fields follow the coal carts through the cities and put the coal In the cellars while the male driver sits on the wagon and drives the milk wagons into the towns a woman and a dog generaly making a team for the milk cart The laboring ladies have the full benefit ben-efit of that part of the profits of a protective pro-tective tariff that fall to the lot of working people The wages of female servants in Prussia range from 1428 to 7140 per year of males 2380 to 9520 The average weekly wages paid to female laborers of all classes in Germany Ger-many is 217 A German female farm hand employed em-ployed in hoeing the fields receives 12 cents to 17 cents a day with schnapps at 9 oclock potatoes and I coffee at noon and black bread and beer at 4 Remember these are the high wages that are the result of protection in Germany A native painter in India earns 40 cents a day A weaver In Germany receives 60 cents a day Railroad clerks in Germany are paid an average of 52 cents a day German editors receive an average of 671 salary per week proofreaders 522 compositors 396 the devil gets 142 The German press ought to be lively and spirited in devotion to the glorious effects of a protective tariff The wages of farm laborers in Eng land in 1850 were 9 shillings a week in 1880 17 in Germany at the same dates the wages were respectively Sand S-and 12 shillings England is what is called a free trade country you know English laborers of all kinds are now paid over twice as much as they were a century ago A century ago England flourished under protection now it has a tariff tar-iff for revenue only The truth is wages of most kinds have inQreased In the United States in England and in Germany during the past half century This is not due simply to a protective tariff because the increase in England under the free trade system has been greater than in Germany under protection The determined stand taken by working people their organization for the main tenance of their rights and the improvements provements as to skill and the produc tion of better classes of articles for the market have contributed to the change But there is destituion in all these countries and that is not to be change But there is destitution in all trade Any one who has traveled among the gricultural classes in Great Britain and has also mingled with the arti sans and laborers in the manufacturing manufactur-ing districts and is familiar with their condition from thirty to fifty years ago and that of the present period I knows beyond all question that the improvement is very great indeed remarkable re-markable Under protection the condition con-dition of the working classes was this Wages were very low food particularly particu-larly bread was high Under the I change to 1free trade wages have increased in-creased and bread and clothing are comparatively cheap Many articles of common consumption consump-tion are much cheaper in England than in the United States so that a person can live In that country on a much lower amount than In this country coun-try The wages are higher here and there are some things that can be obtained ob-tained more cheaply in the United States than in England The advantages advant-ages to labor here are great They are very mUch greater when compared with German wages and the condition condi-tion of workers there although the cost of living in Germany is small In comparison But of course working people as a rule live better in this country than in Europe and their general gen-eral condition is vastly in advance of the condition on the other side of the seaBut But when these advantages are attributed at-tributed to the kind of protection which reached its climax in the McKinley bill it is evident there is a great mistake mis-take in the powers of reasoning from effect to cause And mark this work I ing people you cannot find that when the rates of duty have been put up higher the protected manufacturers I and employers have raised the wages of their workmen However as soon as a proposition is made to reduce the tariff and bring them into fair competition compe-tition with other manufacturers although al-though they are to be supplied with raw materials free of duay they at once raise the scare that they will have to reduce wages On this question Mr Johnson of Ohio who is a manufacturer of steel rails and isin favor of a more sweeping sweep-ing reform of the tariff than is proposed pro-posed made a very striking speech in I the House of Representatives a few days ago > Here are a few extracts from his remarks Of all the nonsense talked against the reduction of tariff Taxes the claim that they benefit the working man is most transparent The effect of these taxes is to increase the price of everything every-thing that the working man sells his labor forsince the money he gets is the only medium with which he obtains ob-tains what is the real object of his labor Granted which is only true in a comparatively few cases that such taxes increase the profits of his employer I il em-ployer Do employers pay larger wages I when they get larger profits I do not i laughter and even philanthropists do not I I In answer to a question as to payment I pay-ment to his hands Mr Johnson said I In Johnstown where our mill is located I I lo-cated we have been paying 30 or 40 I cents a day more than our neighbors i do not say this with the view of arousing any sympathy or claiming any credit We did it not because we loved our men better than others loved I theirs but for the plain business reason rea-son that it paid us to do this We had the pick of the men Today we are paying for common labor 150 a day I while our neighbor the Cambria Iron I company member of the steel rail pool is paying 85 cents a day We do this because we believe we get a better return re-turn than we would if we paid 85 cents Mr Johnson speaking further in regard re-gard to the workings of protection on i wages alluded to Mr Carnegie in this way I I Before he started forJerusalem a few days ago he utilized the tariff to reestablish the steel rail pool and pay other manufacturers to shut up their I works and throw their men out of employment I em-ployment then a general cut in wages was made in all his greatest establishments I estab-lishments and then he announced himself him-self ready to give as much as 5000 a day to feed the unemployed in Pitts burga place that if there were any truth in the theory that protection is good for labor ought to be a very paradise par-adise for workingmen Ii The prices paid for labor in Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania and Ohio are not anything I to boast of in support of the theory I that the purpose of protection is to raise wages Facts contradict the assumption I as-sumption Much of the prosperity that has come from manufactures in this country is due to inventive genius and i has come in spite of the high tariff I The purpose of tariff reform is not I to cut down the wages of working people neither will it operate to that effect When it has come into operation I opera-tion and its general beneficial effects are produced there will be no desire among the masses of the American people to return to the days of high tariff protection |