PROTECTION vs. FREE TRADE. APPENDIX. THE following tables have been added by special request: I. Comparative Wages in England and the United States: Compiled from official consular reports and published by the Secretary of State. What One Dollar Will Buy.-The free trader is compelled by the figures in Table I to admit that the American laborer gets much higher wages than the English laborer, but he insists that it costs the American laborerunder protection-much more for living expenses. in the following table : What the fact is appears III. And the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics has lately compiled the following table showing the relative expenditure of American and English workmen who receive the same wages: In other words, with the same income and relative modes of living, it costs the Englishman ten per cent more to live than it does the American. But, as a rule, the Englishman does not live as well as the American does, and it is this fact that shows the fallacy in the statement that it costs the American workingman more to live than it does the Englishman. If it does it is because he lives better. But the real question is, in which country will a dollar purchase most of the necessaries of life for a family? Tables II and III show to a demonstration. IV. Savings Banks, Deposits, Gains, etc.-Savings banks are organized for, and patronized by, wage-earners almost exclusively. The following tables are a conclusive answer to the sneer of the free trader that under protection "employers are growing richer while wage earners are growing poorer : Have the wage earners of New York and Kings Counties, or of the State of New York, or of the United States been growing poorer under protection? Great Britain including England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands. New York State and Great Britain (including countries named above) compared, as to growth, deposits, etc., since 1860. NEW YORK. GREAT BRITAIN. No. laborers, 1886... Increase of laborers since 1860.. Amount of Deposits in Savings Banks. Average gain to each Depositor since 1860. 1,884,000 40 per cent $469,623,000 800 per cent $380.00 171.00 15,181,000 30 per cent $436,000,000 118 per cent $29.00 12.00 In other words, the 1,884,000 laborers of New York State alone crushed down (?) by protection, have to their credit $33,623,000 more than the entire 15,181,000 laborers of Great Britain enriched (?) by free trade, have to their credit; each New York depositor in savings banks has gained on the average since 1860 more than fourteen times as much as has the average English laborers. In Massachusetts the depositors in savings banks average two to each family. In Great Britain the depositors in savings banks average one to every thirty families V. The following table compiled from Census Report shows the gains in Annual Production during the last decade of a Free Trade Tariff (1850 to 1860), and also between 1870 and 1880 under protection, for the same articles : It may also be added that during the free trade period 1846-1861 the excess of our imports over exports was $432,000,000, and we had to send that immense sum to foreign land in gold to pay the balance; while during the Protection period 1876-1891 the excess of our exports over imports was $1,670,000,000, for which foreign nations had to send the gold to us to pay the balance. These protection facts are tremendously at variance with free trade theory; but that, of course, makes it "so much the worse for the facts." VI. The following table shows the purchasing power of farm products during five years of Free Trade Tariff ending in 1850, and five years of Protection ending in 1880: VII. The Truth About Prices.-Below will be found the average retail prices of fifty-six articles in common use. The first column shows prices in 1857, near the close of our last free trade period; the second column gives prices in 1889, a year before the McKinley Bill passed; the next column gives prices in 1890, during the campaign of last year, while the last column gives present prices, October, 1891; |