PROTECTION AND WAGES.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sia,—I enjoyed the privilege of listening to Mr. Chamberlain's remarkable speech and witnessing the enthusiasm of the great audimice in Greenock Town Hall on Wednesday, October 7th. I shall not presume to criticise that speech. There is plenty of criticism in store for it. But I was much struck by an argument which a strong supporter of Mr. Chamberlain adduced in support of his views on the way home froin the meeting. As an instance of the damaging effect of foreign Protection on our home industries this gentleman expounded the sad plight of one of his friends, a manufacturer in Glasgow. This manufacturer finds great difficulty in com peting with goods similar to his own imported free of duty from France. The great advantage which the French manu- facturer possesses, as my friend explained, is that, whereas the Glasgow manufacturer pays his workers 15s. or 16s. per week of fifty-one hours, the French manufacturer only pays his workers 7s. or 8s. per week of seventy hours or there- abouts. It is no doubt a cruel hardship on the Glasgow manufacturer, who only makes a few paltry thousands a year, and might make ten times that amount if the French goods were excluded by a Protective tariff. But what I would like the workmen and workgirls of this country to consider is how far this state of matters is consistent with the alluring doctrine which Mr. Chamberlain propounded,—that if we only had a Protective tariff their wages would rise. France, as they know, has a heavy Protective tariff, and yet, the workgirls there earn only half the wages of the same class of workers in this unhappy Free-trade country. Will Protection have a different effect on their wages from that which it has had on the wages of the French workers ? Mr. Chamberlain tells our working men that if they try his patent economic medicine their lot will become a vastly happier one, and in the same breath he tells them that on the Continent, where this medicine is uni- versally employed, the workmen labour under conditions so much worse than those of the British workmen that it is a shame to expose the latter to the Continental competition. But if the Chamberlain medicine is so good for the system, how comes it that it has had such a lowering effect on the rival workmen of the Continent P-1 am, Sir, &c., [Our correspondent makes an excellent point, and shows how dangerous it is to build on a foundation of paradox, as the Protectionists habitually do.—En. Spectator.j
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