insisted upon, and, as constantly, acknowledged in a variety of ways, of which the model factory is one and the gift of free libraries to cities and towns another. New England, the heart of America, conceives that man the richest who, having perfected his own life as far as in him lies, exercises the widest influence for good, whether by his character, or his money, over the lives of others, and that nation the richest which contains the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. To the action of this belief, which, in spite of dollar-worship moulds, as I believe, the conduct of an increasing number of lives in New England, we may, I think hopefully, leave the future of American labour, dark, by comparison with earlier conditions, as its present seems.

CHAPTER XVI.

LABOUR, WAGES, AND THE TARIFF.

IT would be unsatisfactory, not to say absurd, if, after spending so much time in the workshops of New England, we left them without a word about American wages. That word has, however, been purposely postponed, because the question of wages in America is too intimately mixed up with that of protective duties for either to be separately discussed, while, hitherto, it has been convenient to avoid talking of the tariff at all.

Labour in the United States has been sedulously educated, both by public men and the press, to believe that protective taxation makes wages high, while the employers urge that, having to pay high wages, they must be protected from foreign competition in order to prosper, or even to live. The protective legislator promises to satisfy both parties with one measure, but as he cannot make wages low, and it would sound badly to talk of making prices high by means of

taxation, he affirms that, after all, tariffs lower prices. Hence arises a paradox, which astonishes and even confounds the industrial inquirer in the States, where he finds employers asking for a law that will presumably raise wages, and producers for a measure intended to lower the prices of their products.

The idea that wages are determinable by the tariff is the corner-stone of American protection. The operative fully believes that his prosperity is boun l up with the protective system. The farmer, anxious, above all things, for the greatest possible number of wellto-do customers, lends his support to proposals for making the artisan rich by Act of Congress. Capitalists, becoming manufacturers from ostensibly patriotic motives, declare their desire to keep wages at such a level as will enable labour to live at some assumed standard of comfort, due to the dignity and self-respect of the American artisan. In return, they ask to be protected from foreign competition, and while posing as benefactors to their country, whose interests, in the public opinion, demand that America should become the home of manufacturing industry, are abundantly rewarded by the power to fix their own prices in a close market.

It is, however, easy to show that wages in the States are determined, not in the factory, but on the farm; not by protection, but by free trade. Out of a total population of fifty millions, there are seventeen and a

half millions of workers in the United States, the remainder being dependents. Nearly eight millions of the workers are engaged in agriculture, and less than three millions in manufacturing industries, while of the total produce raised by the former class, two-thirds is consumed in the country, and the remaining third, representing almost the whole foreign trade of the States, is exported. The prices which these surplus exports realize are clearly determined in the markets where they are sold, of which Liverpool is the chief, and they will be high or low, according as the harvests of the world are good or bad. Similarly, the wages which can be paid to American labour engaged in the production of food-stuffs must depend on the amount of money obtained in exchange for them, and, as the great majority of workers are so engaged, their rates of wages will regulate those in every other branch of business. Wages, like water, seek a level, and labour will quit the field for the workshop, or the workshop for the field, as this or that pays best.. Thus agriculture is the paymaster [whom American manufacturers must outbid, and agricultural wages are determined in the free-trade markets of the world.

A glance at the condition of industry in America vividly illustrates this conclusion. A population, still very sparse, is, for the most part, engaged in gathering where it has not sown. Any man with a few dollars, and a strong pair of arms, can win far greater rewards from the cheap and fertile soil of the States than he could

possibly obtain by the same amount of effort in Europe. His wages are high because the grade of comfort to

be obtained from the land by a little labour is high, and The fami's the artisan's wages must follow suit if the immigrant is n to be tempted from the field into the workshop. But larva' ! the politicians would have us believe that American eveni labour owes its prosperity to taxation, in other words, that the immigrant comes seeking to enjoy, not the rich prizes with which the untouched earth rewards his toil, but the blessings that flow from a prohibitive tariff which adds an average forty-three per cent. to the cost of every human requirement except food.

The

Turning from so transparent a sophism, let us now look at the notion, that high wages make protective taxes necessary to the prosperity of all, and to the very life of some manufacturing industries in America. obvious answer to this proposition is that wages are only one item among many in the cost of every manufactured article, and a manufacturer who cannot pay the current rates of wages without loss is misapplying his money, while the law does a serious injury to the community by making it contribute to keep such a business on its legs. If wages and profits always displaced each other, and no employer could make profits if he paid high wages, this would be equivalent to saying that America would do better to avoid manufacturing altogether and stick to selling her high-priced agricultural labour in foreign markets, where she can obtain the results of two days'