Condition of the Labour Market in America.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 221, 24 September 1887, Page 1

Condition of the Labour Market in America.

How Protection Works. The London Standard, recently published an article showing the condition of the labour irarket in the United States. Of the accuracy of the statements made in the Standard there can be no doubt whatever, as these are ba^ed upon the official report of Mr Booker, the English Consul-General at New York. It was stated in that State alone for the year ending October 31st, 1886, there had been no fewer than 1900 strikes against 222 in the previous year. We re- [ spectfully ask protectionists to tell us what inference they draw from that iact? Does it not exhibit in a iicrce light the struggles which the men ot America have to make in order to obtain a living at the hands of those who own the protected industries of the United Stato*, ? Do not these 1900 strikes in the State of New York proclaim in a manner that none but the most bigoted protectionists can fail to understand how ' protection lower* wages ? To what cruel extremes must the manufacturer? of New j York have carried their competition when 1900 strikes took place in one year. If protection mean-* hiuh "wages how came it to pass that 1900 striken took place in the State of New York last year ? But this is not the worst of it. The working* men of the State of New York are so thoroughly at the mercy of their employers, the manufacturers, that only 732 strikes were successful. Their agiUvHons for more wages were unsuce-sful. In 500 ascertained cases they had to accept the terms of their employers, and admit that their strikes were in vain. But the most important aspect of the the case Mr Booker considers to be not the money gain or loss " but the moral condition under which the industiies are being carried on." Efforts, we are told, have been made by the State Legislature to remedy the evil by means of a State Board of Arbitrators, but the powers of such an institution are too limitedlto cope with the diificulty. That is the condition of things to which protection has brought the labour market in America, according to the English Consul-General's statement as published.