Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/83

Rh Here we see why employers of labor want a tariff. For it is an obvious inconsistency and a most grotesque satire that the same men should tell the workmen at home that the tariff makes wages high, and should go to Washington and tell Congress that they want a tariff because the wages are too high. We have found that the high wages of American laborers have independent causes and guarantees, outside of legislation. They are provided and maintained by the economic circumstances of the country. This is against the interest of those who want to hire the laborers. No device can serve their interest unless it lowers wages. From the standpoint of an employer the fortunate circumstances of the laborer become an obstacle to be overcome (§65), The laborer is too well off. Nothing can do any good which does not make him less well off. The competition which troubles the employer is not the "pauper labor" of Europe.

99. "Pauper labor" had a meaning in the first half of this century, in England, when the overseers of the poor turned over the younger portion of the occupants of the poorhouses to the owners of the new cotton factories, under contracts to teach them the trade and pay them a pittance. Of course the arrangement had shocking evils connected with it, but it was a transition arrangement. The "pauper laborers'" children, after a generation, became independent laborers; the system expired of itself, and "pauper laborer" is now a senseless jingle.

100. The competition which the employers fear is the competition of those industries in America which can pay the high wages and which keep the wages high because they do pay them. These draw the laborer away. These offer him another chance. If he had no other way of earning more than he is earning, it would be idle for him to demand more. The reason why he demands more and gets it is because he knows where he can get it, if he cannot get it