A TALK TO WORKINGMEN.
This is a sample of how the protectionists argue. There is only one country in Europe in which the wages of labour are within a half of what they are in this country That is Great Britain. Wages in Germany, France, Belgium and .Switzerland arc not»ne-thircl of what they are here. Those of Italy are not one-quarter. One duty of Government is to protect th« labour of its citizens. Last year cheap foreign labour was imported into the United States in the shape of manufactured goods to the value of 692,319,7G8d01. This was a great wrong to the American labour. Iu that immense amount of imports, permitted by our insufficient and defective tariff, the labour of women employed in the Manchester, England, cotton mills, whose wages do pot average OOdol. a year, came into competition with the higher priced labour of our Southern and Northern cotton spinners. In that mass of imports was the labour of German factory workmen averaging less than lludol. a year, and that of women averaging less than 56(lol. a year. Munich is a gallery and centre of art. German women with as many as six children saw wood in its streets for 15 cents a day. Maya merciful God sink the United States 10,000 feet under the sea before that hideous spcctaele shall become an incident of our civilisation ! Nearly 700.000,000d01. worth of the starvation labour of Europe "in the form of manufactured goods was imported into this country last year ! That which came from Belgium in bales and boxes represented the wages of 22 cents a day for women, and 43 cents for men ; and the highest priceil labour in loose cargoes of Belgium stepl and iron represented wages less than 60 ceuts a day. Compared with these, the wages of Carnegie's men at Braddock are the incomes of princes. Italian labour in Italian merchandise was imported into this country last year in competiton with Americau labour at pricts that should fill sensitive souls with horror, and alarm the thoughtful for the future of the human race. The pay in the cotton factories of Naples is 20 cents, a day ; of the Neapolitan marble and granite cutters from 40 to 50 cents a day, according to skill ; of coachmen, 30 cents ; of women in lace factories, 10 cents, and girls 7 cents ; of soldiers in the army "idol, a month. Of all the workmen in the glassworks of Italy, only the skilled blowers receive as high as a dollar a day, and labourers on farms, hoeing or making hay, from 15 to 18 cents a day, working from sun to sun. , God save America from such wages ! 1 In the Swiss silk goods which came . into our half-protected country last year j in those seven hundred millions of imports i was the skilled labour of men at 40 cents < a day and of women at 20 cents, both , competing with the silk weavers of | of Paterson, New York, Philadelphia and ] Cheney. Glasgow, in Scotland, is the | steamship factory of of the world, and its | blastfurnace owners and iron rollers howl > for Freetrade day and night. Of the • families in that manufacturing Sodom { 41,000 out of 100,000 live in one room, i and half of the men and women in that i city are out of work. That one room for i a family of father, mother daughter and ; sons tells what wages are in Scotland, ' and how they drag humanity down into t bestiality and misery.—New York Sun. | 1 Mis.s Ada—How do you pronounce ' Mephistophiles, Mr Smith ?Mr Smith —I J never pronounce it. I simply mention k his home address. * The late James Freeman Clarke of . Boston once embodied a pertinent truth ' in few words, when he declared that 8 "the politician thinks of the election, the statesman of the next century. At a recent rose show in Rome, Signor 1 Guisepje Balestra, famous fi>r his tea 1 roses, eshibited 7GG varieties (including i nearly all known types of his specialty) 2 grown at his villa on Monte Parioln. t
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Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2513, 18 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)
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681A TALK TO WORKINGMEN. Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2513, 18 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)
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