Show ARE WOliKINGilLN BLIND i Reference was made yesterday to the strike of the employees of the Americar Tool and Axe Co on account of the hostility hostil-ity of the company to labor unions an this is but one of numerous instances OJ the same sort Wherever workmen can bE < imported from abroad to cheapen labor 01 wherever an excuse can be made to reducE wages the protected manufacturers ar sure to take advantage of the chance P t few days ago a manufacturer in Germany in view of the high prices of bread and meat voluntarily increased the pay of his hands and added to the amount ho regularly regu-larly pays superannuated employees in pensions Where do we see instances of this kind of generosity among American capitalists working bodies of men in protected pro-tected industries Instead of the condition of the laboring man being ameliorated by the policy of protection pro-tection it is gradually but surely being made worse Syndicates and trusts are the handmaids of protection and by means of these the monopolists attempt to regulate the times and conditions under which labor shall bo performed They shut down or start up at pleasure their furnaces their looms their machinery because having full control of the supply of manufactured goods In thee market with neither foreign nor domestic competition they can make as much money by running their establishments establish-ments part of the time as they would by running constantly There never was a graator fallacy than that the protection now enjoyed by the eastern manufacturers would raise tile wages of their employees The protected manufacturers pocket every cent of the bonus that protection gives them The tariff rate is added to the price of their goods and they get their labor where they can get it the cheapest The waxes paid to the men is less than half per capita of the product of their laborless than half their earnings The pretenco that a high tariff is necessary neces-sary on foreign manufactures in order to protect American workmen is fraudulent Statistics show that it costs 153 worth of labor in England to make a ton of steel and 152 worth in the United States S254 worth for a ton of steel rails in England and 154 worth in the United States GL cents worth in England to make a ton of pig iron and in the United States 7Scents worth Thus in two groat products the labor is cheaper in the United States than in Great Britain and in only one is it higher The explanation of this is in the greater efficiency of American labor One fourth more wages will be earned by an American workman than by a British workman work-man for he will do a third more work His services are estimated by the amount product he turns out There is no other country in the world where a manufacturer manufac-turer takes as much profit out of the earnings earn-ings of his employees as in the northeastern northeast-ern part of the United States But there is another side to this question the cost of living under a protective tariff The working classes have had ample time to discover the difference in their grocery shoo and dry goods bills as comparedwith those rendered before the MCKINLEY tariff law went into cflect This tariff levies almest 00 per cant on nearly all tho necessaries of life consumed by a family Tho lumber windowglass nails and other hardware in the houses they live in aro so taxed The carpets the lookingglass the dishes the sheets blankets blan-kets shoes clothing tinware tools stoves grates needles buttons thread twine and many other such articles the lowest S as well as the highest are taxed It is estimated that the tariff is 12 a head for the total population of the country and with an average of five persons to a family this would make 00 a year to go to tho sustenance of infant industries Is it not expecting too much of the working work-ing people to suppose that they will be blind to the impositions put upon them by the advocates of protection |