Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/555

Rh into the correctness of those comparisons; but, assuming them to be correct, what do they prove? That it is the tariff which makes wages higher in America, and the absence of a tariff which makes them lower in England? As everybody knows, wages range higher in free-trade England than in protectionist Germany. Now, if it is true that wages depend upon the tariff, then free trade must have caused higher wages in England, and wages in Germany must have been depressed by protection. Or, if we assume that wages range higher in England than in Germany, somehow, in spite of English free trade, may it not be said with equal justice that wages range higher in America than in England, somehow, in spite of American protection?

The discussion has its humors. In an article on “Wages and the Tariff,” published by one of the foremost champions of the present protective system (New York Tribune, August 14th), the following statements occur: “The competition of foreign labor is felt in many branches of manufacture in England. They are not protected against the competition of inferior classes of foreign labor who earn less and live in greater wretchedness than themselves.” But where are those “inferior classes of foreign labor who earn less and live in greater wretchedness” to be found? In such countries as Germany, France and Belgium, countries which have protective tariffs. Thus, while we are told that in high-tariff America workingmen must be protected against the pauper labor of free-trade England, we are also told that the workingmen of free-trade England must be protected against the pauper labor of the high-tariff countries on the European continent.

If it is true that wages in one country which has a protective tariff are higher than wages in another country which has free trade, and also that wages are higher in the country which has free trade than in several other