REASONS IN FAVOR OF TAX REVISION. It is no stretch of truth to say that these discriminations against the manufactur ing industries have very materially discouraged the use of wool and promoted the substitution of adulterants, most manufacturers having for some time given more attention to the manipulation of substitutes, so as to give them the appearance and touch of wool, than to the matter of improvements in the making of pure woolens in order to compete in quality with their foreign rivals. This has given rise to the impression that we are less skilled than the European workmen, yet it is self-evident that it requires as much if not more skill to work up the adulterants so as to give them a marketable appearance as to manipulate the genuine materials. A great deal of stuff is put upon the markets now as cassimeres, etc., that does not contain over ten per cent. of wool. Manufacturers who attempt to make nothing but pure woolens are compelled to close their mills. To make stuffs that shall compete in the markets with foreign makes in texture and variety, it is almost invariably necessary to use some wools of foreign growth for mixing with the domestic; but as the tariff enhances the cost of these wools by from 25 to 150 per cent, there is no possibility of the American manufacturer using them in competition, and hence we are forced to give over to the foreign manufacturers the monopoly of all the markets and allow them to supply our own people with goods into which not a pound of American wool enters. imported in 1887 amounted to 49,000,000 pounds, which, at 4 pounds of raw wool to the pound of finished product, represented 196,000,000 pounds of wool, which, Thus the woolen manufactures with the 115,000,000 pounds of raw wool, makes a total importation of 311,000,000 pounds, or considerably more than the entire wool-clip of the United States. If all this had come in free in the raw state, it would have absorbed for mixture a large quantity of domestic wool, instead of every pound that did come in anyhow displacing a pound of Amer.can wool, and at the same time depriving American labor of employment and our poor people of the comfort of woolen clothing. From a statement recently made public by a leading carpet manufacturer, e gleam the fact that ingrain carpets which formerly were made largely of wool are now made of an average of one-fifth wool and four-fifths adulterants, and in the whole of the carpet industry probably not a million pounds of domestic wool is now used. There is no carpet wool raised in this country, and yet a tax of over 26 per cent., which far exceeds all the wages paid in the manufacture of carpets, is still imposed upon the wool which is necessarily brought in from the outside. If this wool were admitted free, a greater quantity would be used, and probably not less than 10,000,000 pounds of domestic wool would be absorbed for mixture. For these reasons we fail to see how the wool growers are benefited by the tariff on wool, as it inevitably restricts the market for their wool, both by forcing the use of substitutes and by promoting the importation of wool in the manufactured state, all of which must redound to the injury of both the wool-grower and the wool-worker. HOW TRUSTS ARE ENCOURAGED. If protection protects, or if the present tariff arrangement is really beneficial to the manufacturing industries, why do the manufacturers find it necessary to form "combines," "arrangements," or "understandings" in order to protect themselves against what they term a demoralized market? Why should they adopt the suicidal policy of reducing the wages of labor, which can not but curtail the absorption of their wares and thus injure their business? Why do workingmen find it necessary to organize for self-protection against the very men who are loudest in their demands for more tariff upon the plea that labor "must be protected?" Men who are really protected need not go to the trouble and expenses of protecting themselves. As "charity begins at home," would it not be more consistent for the protected and protectionist employers to show by the bettering of wages of their employes and by treating them as men-freemen if you please that their cry for more taxes is not raised solely for their own benefit, and that they are ready to make true the oft repeated declaration that protection to the manufacturer will enable him to pay high wages? Now, as he has just the protection he wants, and is still cutting down wages, is it not evident that he is either wrong in his protection theory or is playing "heads I win and tails you lose" with his workingmen? Surely no sane man can see in the "trusts" and "arrangements" of the capitalists and the frantic efforts of labor to hold its own against the encroachments of combined capitalists aught else but the positive and practical proof that protection of labor by a tariff, or by any other tax upon its products, is worse than a failure, because it neutralizes the natural advantages of our country and disarranges the natural course of trade, and thus must result in the destruction of labor. When the manufacturer closes his mill, or lays off any of his hands, he will invariably give as an excuse the bad state of trade, an honest acknowledgment that it is trade that keeps the mill going, and hence is a good thing to keep labor steadily employed and give it a chance for better wages. Now, it is always the part of wisdom to protect ourselves against a bad thing, but it has fallen to the lot of the protectionists to discover the utility of pro-tecting ourselves against a good thing, and in order to accomplish this to tax ourselves to spite and impoverish some one else. That the protectionist manufacturers do not altogether believe in this theory is evidenced by the fact that they have here an association which has for its object, among others, the securement of a higher tariff for the protection of American labor, and by unity of action, to be better prepared to resist the demands of labor for more wages. But if they really do believe that people can become rich by taxing themselves why do they not try the experiment by taxing themselves to pay us more wages, or why do they resist all our efforts in that direction? It would surely be as cheap, or cheaper, to tax themselves to pay us a little more than it is to tax themselves to pay to the raw-material men much more than our entire wages amount to. Is not this evidence that they are in favor of those taxes of which the largest share flows back into their pockets and falls with crushing weight upon us? Hence we have just cause to demand such a change of the laws as will secure a moreequitable distribution of the benefits amongst all the people. But there is danger in this theory of protection in this, that it involves the delegation or transference of the taxing power to individuals and corporations, thus placing the greatest and widest of all governmental powers and responsibilities into the hands of irresponsible men, whose greed will thus be stimulated to such a degree that soon classes will be created which will be specially interested, and will be powerful enough to override the will of the people and make ours a government of, by, and for the classes. As we as a nation are already tending to wards customs and conditions indigenous to European monarchical institutions, are we not justified in sounding the alarm now? And as these tendencies are due solely to the drift of legislation towards restrictions upon the natural powers and privileges of the people, is it not time to turn about and see if by going in the direction of more freedom we will not the more quickly realize the anticipations of the founders of the Republic of making this the most free, and therefore the most. prosperous, country on earth, thus setting an example to the world that will cause all other nations to imitate us. THE BURDENS OF TAXATION. Can it be said that the burdens of taxation are not excessive when they are equal to two dollars for every one dollar of wealth accumulated by the whole people; when they absorb nearly, if not quite, one half of the earnings of labor, falling ten to twenty times heavier upon those who labor for a living than upon those whose income is from capital, and when they are accumulating in the national Treasury by a hundred million dollars or more, taken from the channels of trade and locked up to be a source of temptation for every political trimmer, jobber and subsidy shark in the country? When we reflect that this sum, if left among the people to fulfill its legitimate functions in trade, would naturally foster the distribubution and absorption of the products of labor to more than ten times the amount of the surplus, we can readily appreciate the full measure of the damage done to labor by the accumulation and locking up of a surplus. Ignoring the influence of material conditions upon the wages of labor, they have told us that the laying on of these taxes was necessary to keep up the high standard of American wages. If this were correct it would follow that the propor ! tion of wages to materials should have increased during the period of protection. But what are the facts? In 1850 the proportion of value of materials to the wages of labor in the manufactures was 70 to material, 30 to labor; in 1860, 74% to material, 25 to labor; in 1870, 761 to material, 234 to labor; in 1880, 78 to material, 22 to labor; and now it is about 80 to material, 20 to labor. Accepting the theory of the modern protection school these figures would furnish the indubitable proof that the tariff has had the effect of raising the cost of the materials and depressing the wages of labor; and when we take in connection with this the wonderful advance in the efficiency of labor during the same period, this table stands as a most terrible indictment against those whose bungling legislation has wrought the mischief. The relative productivity and earnings of the woolen and worsted weavers in the United States and England will show, too, whether the high standard of wages has been kept up here; and to make the comparison perfectly fair, we will presume that both weave the same class of goods, 80 picks to the inch: Speed of loom, United States, average. 85 picks per minute. Hours of labor, England, 54 per week. Product per weaver per week of continuous work, United States, 106 yards. The average loss of time caused by breakages, etc., being about one-fifth the net product per week, would be in the United States, 85 yards. England, 54 yards. The highest average rate of wages paid in this country for this class of work is 2 mills per pick per yard, or 16 cents per yard for 80 pick work, and if the same rate was paid in England it would follow that the American weaver can earn a possible wage of $13.60 cents per week to the English weaver's possible $8.64. Of course the actual earnings are less in both cases, but the relative difference will not vary either on a rise or fall. The earnings, however, vary so much throughout our own country as to bring the time earnings of our weavers in some cases even lower than the time earnings of some of the European weavers, as will be seen from the following table, compiled from the first annual report of the National Commissioner of Labor, and the same rule holds good for every other class of workmen in the woolen industry. Daily wages of woolen weavers in the United States: According to the United States consular reports the earnings of woolen weavers in England vary from $3.50 to $11 per week If we keep in view the relative productivity of the labor of this country and England, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the $450 per week in North Carolina is below the lowest of England, and does it not prove that the American manufacturer gets his work done cheaper than the English manufacturer, and that therefore the wages of labor do not and can not find consideration in his cry for more protection? It also proves that we are brought into deadly competition with labor in our own country that may be as justly called pauper labor" as that of Europe. It further proves that the tariff has not even preserved to us our just share of the natural opportunities of the country; that it has only been instrumental in building up colossal fortunes for the few, and that a continuance of it will end in our degradation to a condition of serfdom. THE AVERAGE WAGES EARNED IN MILLS. There are a number of mills in and around Philadelphia where $5 a week is considered very good wages now for a weaver, and there are any number of mills in England where these would be considered starvation wages, and whenever the employers here offer a reduction of wages they set up the plea that some of their neighbors are paying less, and hence a reduction is necessary in order to enable them to compete. They seem no longer to fear foreign competition, but it is home competition that is now the great "scare crow," and we have to suffer from it all. Is it not self-evident that a uniform rate of wages should have resulted from the "protective" tariff if it had the virtues claimed for it by its advocates? WHAT THE TARIFF BENEFICIARIES HAVE DONE. Heretofore labor has had no direct or independent voice in the arrangement of tariff laws, these matters having been entirely left to the bosses and monopolists, who were naturally prompted by selfish and conflicting motives, which is best evidenced by the fact that they have found it profitable to spend vast sums of money, and much time, in maintaining expensive lobbies at Washington and costly organizations all over the country, some of which have as one of their objects and purposes the keeping of the workingmen from getting any share of the “protection " by an advance of wages. They have subsidized newspapers and maintained literary bureaus in order to influence public opinion and defame the few men who dare to voice our cause. These sums are largely made up of money that should consistently have gone towards the betterment of our wages, and we are thus placed in a condition which deprives us of the ways and means to be heard before Congress upon an equal footing with those who for the protection of labor spend the parings of our wages. Even now, finding that the desire to hear from the workingmen is growing, they are organizing some of their employees into clubs and associations under the direction of the bosses, the expenses being met by outsiders, in order to prepare them for an expression of sentiment and the making of demands that are to be paraded before the world as those of the free and untrammeled workingmen. The cause which requires such work to bolster it up can not be less than an unholy one. The very means condemn the end. Protection means the enslavement of labor, and nothing proves this more emphatically than the fact that there are work. ingmen, whether, forgetful of the natural dignity of labor, they do it voluntarily, or whether, driven by the force of circumstances brought up by protection, they are compelled to submit to the command to rivet the chains still more tightly about themselves. But why should we find it necessary to make costly efforts in our behalf in this matter? Are we not represented by those to whom we gave our votes, and to whom we have a right to look for efforts in our behalf and for justice? It we were to spend money or keep up a lobby would it not be an acknowledgment that we recognize the power of money to be superior to the will of the people? Shall we be asked to subscribe to the infamous and un-American idea that a well-filled purse gives one man greater rights, powers and privileges than poverty connected with toil does to the other? To do this would be to confess our loss of faith in a representative free government and our belief that the old-time spirit of fair play and equality has entirely departed from the councils of the nation. The fact is, there is no government on the face of the globe, however despotic, that is so unmindful of the interests of labor as to tax the raw materials of industry, which tax must inevitably come out of labor in that it neutralizes its opportunities by depriving it of the means to compete with the labor of other countries. notwithstanding its superior productivity, thus forcing down its wages and speeding its enslavement. But it does more. It builds up colossal fortunes for the few at the expense of our toil and its natural rewards, and is already bearing its legitimate fruit in the aping of European aristocracy on the one hand, and on the other compelling the mass to make piteous appeals for leave to toil; ay, forcing them even to beg of some men the permission to obey the command of the Creator "to eat bread in the sweat of their brow." Shall we stand by with folded arms and abated breath whilst we see this "land of the free and home of the brave" transformed to a "land of the master and home of the slave" by a process which even the most despotic government dares not attempt? Hence we demand the repeal of all taxes upon the raw materials of industry, so that we may be no longer handicapped by costs other than those of production, and that we may be relieved from those depressions of wages which arise from enhanced cost of the necessaries of life, which is due to taxation independent of the cost of production. In fixing the duties upon manufactured articles care should be taken to measure the duties by the difference there may be in wages between this country and Europe, not forgetting to take into account the relative productivity of labor compared with its earnings, and in all cases the duties should be so graded as to correspond with the amount and quality of labor bestowed upon the article in the various stages of manufacture. That this has never been done in any tariff law called protective has been shown above, and it clearly demonstrates the falsity of the claim of their framers that they considered the interests of labor at all in this work. Under the present law the duty on cloth weighing 16 ounces to the yard and valued at 80 cents per yard is 63 cents, while the duty and charges on the amount of wool required to make this cloth will be 53 cents, leaving for protection but 10 cents per yard. Under the most radical tariff-reform measure ever offered in Congress the case would be thus: Duty on the cloth, 35 per cent... Clear protection...... Per yard. $0.28 .Nothing. .28 There is not a woolen or worsted worker in the country who is so blind as not to see that, even on the theory of protection, the tariff reformer who is willing to give him 28 cents against the foreign cloth is a better friend than the protectionist who gives him but 10 cents. Under the present law the duty on a piece of cloth worth 45 cents per yard is 140 per cent., whilst the duty on a piece worth $3.50 per yard is just 50 per cent. How unselfishly careful the protectionists are to make the workingman rich by taxing his cloth 90 per cent. more than the rich man's, and at the same time depriving him of the pleasure and profit of making the finer grades of cloth. THE WAGE ACCOUNT IN THE WOOLEN INDUSTRY. We learn from the census of 1880 that the total wage account of the woolen industry was 17.70 per cent. of the value of the product, and we have reason to believe that the percentage is even smaller now and gradually sinking. Now, sup: pose with wool free the duty was fixed at 18 per cent. of the value of the imported article, varying, of course, with those features which indicate the degree, of labor expended, would it not fully and absolutely protect labor, even though the foreign workmen would work for nothing and find themselves? When, therefore, a duty of more than twice that amount is proposed it can surely not be objected to by the woolen-worker on the ground of offering too little protection, because it will give him 33 cents per yard on the same cloth on which the present law gives him but 10 cents. An excess of duties over differences in the wages of labor can have no other effect than to nullify the efforts of labor, organized or unorganized, to better its condition by placing it absolutely at the mercy of the employer, who, by having his market secured to him by law, can, under the tariff duties, free from the fear of competition, exact from the consumers, who are in large part the workingmen themselves, much more than the wages of labor amount to, while labor, exposed on every side to open competition, is thus forced to pay tribute to the employers, and through them to the controllers of the raw materials, both by suffering a reduction of its time wages and by increased cost of the necessaries of life. This is the shifting of the taxing power which gives the employers privileges that are incompatible |