Protection And Labor

High tarriffs cannot make high wages unless such tariff applies to men and women as well as the things they produce. If the importation of merchandise and manufactures would prevent our milis from running, then the coming to this country of from 300,000 to 600,000 workers annually, seeking a living and a job, must tend to reduce wages here and elévate them in Europe. The experience of Michigan in its lumber and mining districts shows this. No one familiar with these industries can for a moment claim that the tariff has increased or even sustained the wages of those engaged in mining or lumbering. . This country has been prosperous in the main, not on account of the high tariffs, but in spite of them, the profits having been collected by the beneficiaries; that is, the men who are protected - the manufacturers. The protectionists have never in their wildest moments claimed that the tariff forccd employers to pay higher wages, only that it enablcd them to do so, but the free importation of foreign labor prevenís the worker compelling a división of the profits of protection. A recent Commissioner of Labor of Michigan has explained that one great cause of the numerous accidents in the mines of the upper peninsula was that most of the miners did not understand enough English to heed warnings of blasts about to be fired, and were killed by explosions like sheep. Recently an Iron Mountain paper, published in the heart of the richest iron mining district of the world, said that the Italians of that town had sent $3,000,000 in gold home to Italy in three years, and could hardly claim support from the charitable in hard times. There are no native American miners employed in the mines now, except as bosses and foremen, and very few of these, and very few are employed in the sáw milis. That tariffs do not make higher wages is shown by the fact that wages inolder civilizations of Europe and Asia are higher in free trade countries - like England - and lowest in protected countries, and the lowest as the tariff is carried to its logical end, absolute prohibition of trade, as in Russia and China. . Protection protects the wrong man . The Irishman who would not vote a 1 republican ticket because his ■ ployer told hiin it nieant protection ' to him and higher wages, because that was opposed to the interests of his employer, and he knew the employer was human and built on i human lines, may not have been a! philosopher, but he had horse sense, ■ and appreciated the logic of i perience. The development of the world's cor;:merce by steam and electricity brings the whole world together in exchanging products. Every nation brings forth for the common good that wtiich by reason of its climate and environment it can produce cheapest and best, and that nation which can enter into the competition for that trade unhampered by tariff prohibitions and exactions is the nation that will profit most by the trade of the world. This great Yankee nation can take care of itself if the grasp of the protected monopolists is taken from its throat. -