ought to be able to sell at a lower cost than the foreigner. But at the present time the trade of the foreigner with these neutral markets (viz., non-protected markets and British colonies) is steadily increasing, and at a quicker rate than our trade with them. Why is that? Simply because the foreigners produce in thousands where we produce in tens and hundreds. It is the quantity that pays. For instance, Germany has its own home market of sixty millions of people. That it shuts in the face of the foreigner, and we can only enter by paying heavily for the privilege in the shape of import duties. Our own market of forty-two millions is quite open to Germany, so that Germany has a market of one hundred millions and can safely produce on a larger scale than we can in England. It produces more articles and can produce them more cheaply. Germany keeps its own market and undersells us in our own colonies, undersells us in neutral markets, and can even come to England and undersell us there. The following figures give a picture of the movement of British manu Since 1870 these three groups have exactly reversed the order of their importance. It seems that wherever the free import system directly competes with the double market system the former method fails entirely. Here in England we cannot find full employment for a comparatively small annual increment of adult population. Germany finds work every year for more than twice that increment, and the United States for at least five times that increment. But to turn once again to simple illustrations from daily experience. A year or two ago before starting on an American tour, the late Sir Henry Irving proposed to give an order for the necessary posters to a wellknown English firm of printers. The order amounted to some thousands of pounds, but Sir Henry was told by a member of the firm that he would have to pay a very heavy duty if he took English posters into America, about equal to half their value. Consequently the English printers lost the order and the Americans got the work and the money. Mr. Chamberlain put the matter concisely when he said: "We want to arrange matters in the future that for every shilling's worth of German or American or French labor that comes into Britain there shall go back into Germany and France and America at least one shilling's worth of British labor. Mr. Carnegie wrote the other day that a sovereign ($4.86) 67.6 would purchase more of the necessaries, not the luxuries, but more of factured exports to the three great EXPORTS OF BRITISH MANUFACTURES C To British Millions of £. 44.9 78.3 81.1 the necessaries of life in the United States than it would purchase in Britain, and it is a fact that the standard of living in America is much higher than in England, and while the workman lives much better, nevertheless he is able, because of the tariff, to put by much more than money similar any one in position could do in the United Kingdom. F. C. CHAPPELL. FOREIGN WAGES AND INDUS TRIAL COMPETITION. [New York Journal of Commerce.] A recent bulletin of the Bureau of Labor presents a series of statements exhibiting the rates of wages paid in the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Belgium which is full of suggestive interest. The comparisons extend over each of the thirteen years from 1890 to 1903 inclusive and are expressed in rates per hour, so as to avoid inequality in factors arising from differences in the period of work covered by the wage quotation and thereby simplify statistical processes and evade occasion for needless cavil. It may seem unfortunate that the statistics cover only thirteen branches of labor and they not the most prominent; but there is quite a possibility of undue prolixity in Government exhibits intended for popular information, and so long as the limited number of trades selected fairly reflect the course of movements common to the industries at large, little is lost to trustworthiness of data in limiting the number of employments cited. The following tabulation shows the wages per hour paid, in the three leading industrial nations, in twelve common employments, during the year 1903, the figures expressing decimals of a dollar per one hour's work: Total wages per hour for 12 classes of labor .... .1123 .1719 .1328 .1301 .2060 .2028 .2848 .5472 .3594 .1411 .0849 .1795 .1250 .1140 .0797 .1787 .1019 .1310 .1677 .4487 .2863 .3036 .1675 .2707 .1194 .1774 .3450 .$1.4166 $2.0954 $4.2071 It will be seen from these data that, in the case of Germany, on an average of the twelve trades cited, one hour's work represents approximately 12 cents of earnings; in the case of Great Britain 17 1-2 cents per hour; and, in the United States, 35 cents per hour. Or, to express the same ratios in percentages, the British employer has to pay, on the average of these trades, 46 per cent more for labor than the German employer pays, while the difference as against the American employer is 191 per cent. Such was the condition of the comparative rates of wages in these largest industrial countries, in 1903. The following tabulation compares the wage conditions for that year with those of 1890, and at the same time shows the advances in rates during the thirteen years' interval: Germany Great Britain United States 1890. 1903. Inc. .$1.1635 $1.4166 $0.2531 1.8728 2.0954 .2226 3.4861 4.2071 .7210 This comparison shows that wages have risen during the thirteen years, on the average of 21.8 per cent in Germany, 11.9 per cent in Great Britain and 20.7 per cent in the United States. In each country, there have been conspicuous cases of industries in which the rise of wages has been considerably higher than the foregoing figures indicate; but nevertheless the trades selected may be assumed to approximate the general average course of prices. It is to be noted that the rise has been in an almost equal ratio of percentage in Germany and the United States. In Great Britain the rate of advance has been only a little over one-half that which has occurred in the two other nations; which indicates a mild tendency on the part of Germany towards an assimilation in its wages towards the British standard. INDIANA REPUBLICANS STAND PAT. The Indiana Republican State Convention, held April 11, adopted the following resolutions on tariff and reciprocity: "We adhere to the time-honored Republican doctrine of protection. Our commercial and industrial experiences have fully vindicated the wisdom of this great economic policy. The true policy of protection is that schedules are to be changed when experience shall suggest their change. "We recognize reciprocity as the handmaiden of protection, and favor such reciprocity arrangements with other nations as will increase our foreign trade without injury to American industry." A. L. Brick, temporary chairman of the convention said in part: "I believe in erecting, not tearing down. I don't want to win upon the woes of my country. I don't want to live in a political graveyard, where the tombstone marks the grave of a dead desire. I don't want to dwell among the ruins of a dismantled industry. Just nine years ago the Dingley tariff law went into force and effect. Judged by its results, that have no parallel anywhere, it has been the most beneficent act of tariff legislation that ever emanated from the brain of man in this or any other country. In the mutation of events changes take place, great movements crowd each other in new phases, and we must revise the tariff schedule as to particular items to meet the evolution of commercial activity. But nobody wants it revised by the authors of the Wilson bill. No, it should be revised and will be revised by the creator of our magnificent prosperity." The idea advanced by some very brainy writers of philosophic mind, that the nations have long since become land-crazy and that the lust for territory continues a menace to peace on earth, receives now and then curious confirmation. Just at present the search-light is being directed toward the German interests in southwest Africa, and a report presented to the reichstag supplies the figures of the cost of trying, for two long years, to subdue the natives originally exasperated by the trickery and abuse of German traders. The figures show that in these two years thousands of lives have been sacrificed in the course of attempted subjugation, and $150,000,000 measures the cost in hard-earned gold.-New York Commercial. farmers at harvest time of a fair reward for their toil and outlay. The secretary is anticipating only normal conditions, such as the weather experiences year after year, and does not say that some great calamity in the form of floods or a wide area of freezing weather in July may not descend upon the earth. The New York Journal of Commerce cannot understand why it is not practicable to have a partial revision of the tariff; that is, an amendment of a single schedule, or of a few schedules. That journal ought to have learned from past tariff legislation, that when a serious demand is made for a change in one schedule, there will at once spring up demands for changes in the tariff all along the line-demands that cannot well be ignored if there is to be any tariff change whatever; and so it is evident that there must be complete revision or nothing. In a recent tariff discussion, Representative Sullivan of Massachusetts called attention to the reciprocity treaties negotiated since the passage of the Dingley tariff, not one of which had been ratified; and added that since that tariff was enacted the Democratic party had labored constantly to get reciprocal tariff treaties with other countries. But he omitted to mention that when the Democratic party came into power in 1893, it proceeded as soon as possible to repeal the Blaine reciprocal tariff treaties. The Democrats did In a recent issue, the Boston Herald said in an editorial: "There is the best of reason for knowing that a considerable majority of the members of Congress believe that the time has come when a revision of the tariff of 1897 should be made." In the same issue it printed the following from its Washington correspondent: "Massachusetts Republicans have made a canvass of the house on the tariff question, and concluded Sereno Payne was right when he informed Representative McCall that the sentiment of Congress is against tinkering at this session." The editor's statement was based upon mere assumption; the correspondent's statement upon fact. |