The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 9, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 191, 9 December 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 9, 1874.

In the Fortnightly Review of September last | is a very interesting paper entitled "An ! American View of Emigration." It is written by a Mr Mason, a resident of Chicago, and the gloomy view he takes of the state of America at the present moment will probably be as startling to our readers as it has beeu to ourselves. The object of the article is to show that the United States no longer afford a field for emigration to the working man ' without capital, and the writer proceeds to i make certain assertions, with each of which he deals separately at some length. The first is that the conditions that have hitherto favored immigration no longer exiss in their full force. The reasons given by him why immigration has been great hitherto may be put briefly thus : — Land has been plentiful and cheap. The national recklessness in speculation has hitherto been backed by English capital, money has flowed in from abroad in support of any and every scheme, useless mines have been opened, useless canals dug, useless railways built. These causes have led to an unnatural and spasmodic remand for labor, which has been met by levies from Europe. The tariff has alto been an indirect aid to immigration, as by forcing production it has given temporary employment to men at wages which it made high in money and low in purchasing power. But, it is averred, these conditions no longer exist in their full force. First with regard to land. The limit of successful agricultural labor ha* been reached. The limit of agriculture has been fixed year after year, by the c ost of transport. The farmer sells his wheat for the Liverpool price less the cost ot transport to Liverpool. As that cost increases bis profit decreases, and when he reaches a certain point his profit is nil, and he must stop producing, Such a point has been reached, and the plough has struck the invisible ~ but impassable wall which nature has built up around the American grain fields The working classes, we are next told, are not so prosperous as they have been, although wages are actually higher. In proof of this assertion three tabulated statements are given, showing, (I) that the average cost of twelve necessary commidoties for family consumption has increased 92 per cent between 1860 and 1873; (2) that the average increase of wages of eight artizans of different classes in the same period has been 60 per ceitt; (3) that the average increase of rfayt.' labor in 1873 to tarn the twelve necessities ment'oned was 19£ per cent. Siuce 1873, however, the demand for labor has very largely fallen oft. • The reasons for this are so tersely and so clearly put that we must give the paragraph in full. '■' Our national recklessness in speculation has been somewhat tamed by repeated failures. Our capitalists have tried everything, and have lest money in many things. More important than this is the fact that European capital is no longer at our beck and call. It bas grown shy. Our shifting ! currency, liable to be increased at any session I of Congress by hundreds of millions of paper promises to pay, makes all investments uncertain. Our high tariff, which, when we were living under a full pressure of speculation, swelled some branches of manufacture into unhealthy size, has now brought about a general prostration. The reaction has come. The trades which must use imported raw materials are being crushed. our tool-makers, who must get steel from England or Sweden, j once competed with Englishmen in the Eng- | lish markets, and supplied the world. Tiie heavy duties on steel, by making their tools unduly ccßtly, have gradually narrowed their market to America. Capital is being withdrawn from this and other branches of manufacture, and sent abroad. Congress is for ever tinkering at the tariff. This, again, makes investments uncertain. Capital is conservative, and shuns risk. Experience is beginning to show that the risk it runs on this side of the Atlantic v very great. The hasty and foolish legislation in the "West, I which attempts to fix freight and passenger ! rates arbitrarily has made capital timid. * * It is no wonder, then', ihat investments in the West have come to a sharp stop. Things j which were half done have been left half I done Things which were planned have not been began. One result of the general stagnation is that marly railroads have defaulted on their interest payments. The New York Daily Bulletin statts the amount of railway bonds on which the interest is in arrear at 335,295,668 dols. The fact that the enormous amount of capital represented by these bonds is unproductive must keep other capital away. The causes enumerated above hare checked the flow of capital into the country. Scarcity of capital implies . a diminished wage-fund, and hence a diminished demand for labor." And again, " The indirect aid to immigration given by the lavish subsidies of nation, state, county, city, and town to railroads, &c, is given no longer. This makes an enormous difference in the demand for labor. The railway building of the next few years has already been done. A high tariff, an inflated currency, heavy European loans, and these subsidies, produced an abnormal development of our railroad system. Kolling-mills and car-shops were started to right and le(t in order to meet the unnatural demand for railway material. All this is changed. No new roads are being built; no new equipments are being bought. The sickly industries fostered by the unhealthy demand have shrivelled into their natural nothingness. On the Ist May, 630 iron furnaces were out of blast- in Pennsylvania alone. The number has since increased. The stoppage of tbe production involved in railway building— a stoppage that throws tens of thousands out of employment — is not a matter of a day or a year, but of at least two or three years, and probably more. Thus one g i eat field of employment is closed for the present. The many thousands once at work in it, after competing fiercely with each other for retention at greatly reduced wages, press over into other spheres of labor and cut down wages there." Having specified the causes that have led to the overstock of the labor market, the writer proceeds to show that it actually is overstocked. Kiotous demonstrations by unemployed laborers hive occurred in all parts of the country, bakers' shops have beensacked, and in consequence of the tremendous Efforts made in flew York to relieve the distress, men out of work flocked into the city from the country to obtain that relief, and the place swarmed with beggars for food and shelter. Between March, 1873, and Karen, 1874, the wages of skilled. carpenters had fallen from 3 dols 50 cents currency per day to 1 dol 50 cmts, and although they have since riaen again, the highest now obtainable is 2 dols 2fi cents ; in those of railway employes the fall has been from 2 dols 50 cents {to 1 dol 25 cents ; while the miners in the Lake Superior iron district! are on

sjgkc because their wages are bat: 1 dol 30 rtfenfc, to 1 dt 1 75 cents Rgaingt 2 dols ?5 cents to 2 dols 75 cent* last season, and the owners threaten to suspend work rather tbau pay a cent more. « It is true," says our author, ' th*t rtrikts are sometime* caused by the men's belief that the master is raskiuj? greater profits than usual. It is also true that they are often caused by the pressure of grinding want upon the men. To Americans the recent strikes in America seem to balong to the latter category." The fact that re-emigration has set in is significant, and to prove that this is the case a copy is given of posters with which Chicago was recently placarded •. — " There are 200,000 working men out of employment 1 v There is no chance of better times ahead ! 11 Ho ! for merry England ! '• Ho ! for canny Scotland \ '•' Ho 1 for patriot Ireland ! " Tickets to home can be got at half price. &C &c." An extract is given from the New Yark Tribune to the effect that 2000 passsengers had sailed in or.c pay foe Queen atown, Liverpool' and German ports. In a single steamer, the "Brittanic," 400 passenger* had engaged their passages, and the books were, then closed and the company refused to sell any mere tickets though 25 dols was offered for a passage, the nominal price of which was only 15 dole. Our extracts have already extended to a greater length than we intended, and we must reserve the remainder of the article for tomorrow, merely quoting one more passage relative to the dissatisfaction that appears to be so widespread in America. " Strikes and lock-outs are very frequent. The price of coal and iron varies from week to week with the disturbances between capital and labor in Pennsylvania. The mine owners there recently forced a strike of many thousands of working men The? justified it by the published statement that there were so many men at work that a few months' labor overstocked the market. They could not afford to keep them employed throughout the year. Labor disturbances are general. The whole coun'ry is suffering from them. The frequent riots of the unemp'oyrd, the incendiary language that fill's the halls of our large cities on Sundays, the formation of working men's political parties tor the avowed purpose of making the State furnish employment to all who may ask for it, the fierce pn aching of the Commune, its open organisati m in ivew York anJ Chicago, the removal of the International head- quarters from Europe to New York— these are all signs of the rast dissatisfaction that pervades the country, a dissatisfy, ton that upringa from the fact that the hands na<iy to work are far more than enough to perform the work that is to be done."