that the labor cost in England, measured by work, was higher than here."

They are as follows:

TABLE ON WEAVING AND SPINNING.

(Weaving about one-half the expense of the cloth.)

Or 57 per cent higher per spindle in England.

I have, too, in my hand an autograph letter from the president of the American Screw Company, giving in detail facts and figures to show that in his industry the labor cost of his product here is less than abroad, especially in wire drawing. He says also, in the Armington and Sims Engine Company, they employ here one man and two boys to do a certain class of work, while in England are employed five skilled workmen to do the same thing; and he gives further evidence to the same effect. Mr. Sargent, the great hardware manufacturer of Connecticut, gives evidence of a like nature, and shows that our labor, measured by the work it does, is the cheapest labor in the world, and that its high wages come from its great producing power.

Mr. Blaine, in 1881, in his report as Secretary of State, said: "The hours of labor in the Lancashire mills are 56, and in the Massachusetts 60 per week. The hours of labor in the mills in the other New England States, where the wages are generally less than in Massachusetts, are usually 66 to 69 per week.

Undoubtedly the inequalities in the wages of English and American operatives are more than equalized by the greater efficiency of the latter and their longer hours of labor."

Mr. Evarts, Secretary of State in 1878, in his report. on the "State of Labor in Europe," made May 17 of that year, said: "The average American workman performs from one and a half to twice as much in a given time as the average European workman. This is so important a point in connection with our ability to compete with the cheap labor manufacturers of Europe, and it seems at first thought so strange, that I will trouble you with somewhat lengthy quotations from the reports in support thereof;" which quotations he proceeded to give.

That is the reason why we are able to send abroad and sell in competition with the whole world many articles in which labor is the principal item of cost, and the raw material is the least, such articles as hardware goods, cutlery, machinery, watches, and furniture. We never could do it for a minute if it was not that our labor is more efficient than the foreign labor, and, though paid more in dollars, earns every cent that is paid to it.

We pay higher wages because our men earn more. Let me confirm this statement by Republican authority. Mr. Charles S. Hill, the statistician of the State Department, in his argument before the Tariff Commission, pointed out the fact that our manufactured product in 1882 was $8,000,000,000, made by 5,250,000 hands, and that for the same time the product of England was $4,000,000,000, made by 5,140,200 hands; and then he says: "Here is the positive proof that American mechanics, in the aggregate, accomplish exactly double the result of the same number of British mechanics. They are, therefore, very justly paid double in wages."

The Republicans say they need this high-tariff taxation because our wages are so high. I have shown you that this is not true; but, even if it were true, let us see how high a tariff tax would be necessary to pay the whole of the wages in our great industries.

In a report of the Bureau of Statistics, made Jan. 25, 1888, it is stated that the wages paid in the cotton industry are a little over 21 per cent of the cost of the product, and that the protective tariff is over 40 per cent, or more than double the whole labor cost in that industry. So, in iron and steel manufactures, the labor cost is a little over 18 per cent, and the tariff tax more than 40 per cent. In silk goods the labor cost is a little over 22 per cent, and the tariff tax over 50 per cent. In woollen goods the labor cost is about 17 per cent, and the tariff tax over 60 per cent.

Take as further evidence the report of our Labor Bureau in Massachusetts in 1885, which shows that while the wages here are higher than the average wages of the country, still they are not in these industries equal to one half the tariff tax that is put upon their products.

The tariff tax, the Republicans claim, is to equalize the difference between wages here and in England; but as it is more than double the whole wages paid in an industry, and many times more than any such difference, this claim is as absurd as their assertion that the tariff determines wages.

Demand and

What, then, does determine wages? supply and the efficiency of labor. Labor is about the only thing in which there exists to-day free-trade. The manufacturer gets protection for his goods, and free-trade for his labor.

But these taxes, which permit him to burden every home in the land, are made in the name of labor by a

party that never has any interest in labor until, on the eve of election, it tries to deceive it and to get its vote.

The truth is that these tariff taxes are all put on in the name of labor, but labor does not get them. You have heard of the cost of many of the necessaries of life increasing within the last few days since the McKinley Bill was passed, but you have not heard of any manufacturer here in Massachusetts suggesting an increase in the wages of his workmen. The protected industries are getting more by taxing the American people in the name of labor; but, I repeat, labor does not get it. It is not labor that has made this unjust McKinley Bill, but it is wealth and selfish interests, that, controlling the Republican party, have determined to add to their millions the taxes which they wring out of all the people.

It is wealth and monopoly and trusts that are getting the benefit of these high-tariff taxes; and behind many of these taxes that are burdening the people and hurting, instead of helping, the industries, you will find some selfish millionnaire extorting money by abuse of the people's law. That is why the Democracy fights this high and oppressive tariff. Never was it truer to its mission of serving the people's cause and fighting the people's battle than when it stands fighting organized wealth, and demanding that it shall not control the law of this country; when it stands, as it does, for the rights of the people against the privileges of the few, and demanding that unnecessary burdens shall not be laid upon them, but that all shall stand equal before the law.

22

SPEECH

AT GARDNER, MASS., OCT. 28, 1890, UPON THE TARIFF IN ITS RELATION TO THE FARMING INDUSTRY.

I

its

WISH to-night to touch upon a phase of the tariff question about which I have not yet spoken, effect upon the farmers. Here in Gardner, and all about this section of the country, are many farmers who are thinking seriously of the tariff, now that the tariff is beginning to touch their pockets. They feel its burdens, and are asking what benefits they get as compensation. Finding none, they ask if the time has not come to break away from the Republican party that is inflicting on them taxes to their injury.

Now, the Republicans say that they make a home market for agricultural products by their tariff policy, that they indirectly give a benefit to agriculture by building up communities for farmers to feed.

But their tariff taxes now, instead of building up industries and communities, are, many of them, killing our industries and driving them out of the State, as in the case of the glass and iron and their dependent industries. Surely, that is no benefit to any one, at least here in Massachusetts.

But, in the next place, this cry of the Republicans is only another false pretence to get the farmer to submit. quietly to the burden upon him, just as they say to labor which always bears the heaviest burden of taxation — that the tariff is imposed for labor's benefit, because it will give benefits to the manufacturer, and