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When you have got a little, it is easy to get The great difficulty is to get that little." Alas for the labor of Europe! It has much to do, a great battle to fight, “to get that little." Fortunate for the masters of Europe-however unfortunate for mankind-that they have got all. There is nothing created by the labor which they control, which does not come into their hands. Hence the gigantic structures of concentrated power which Europe presents, like the everduring pyramids of Egypt, both created by the same means, the command and control over human labor. Hence the elevated and inapproachable spheres of portions of European society, walled up and defended by innumerable guards, and intrenched by every conceivable means of power. The secret of all these fortified and impregnable positions, of the affluence and pomp in which a small portion of European society moves, and of the power with which they are surrounded, is the degradation and oppression of the laboring classes-depriving them of their rights, and robbing them of two thirds of the fair reward of their toil—withholding from them all compensation; for bare subsistence can not, in any propriety, be regarded in the light of compensation.

It is power thus acquired, which supports the expensive governments of Europe; which maintains its armies, its navies, its religious establishments; which fortifies rank in every position above the grand substratum of labor; which entrenches the commercial millionaire in the centre of his vast accumulations; which endows nobility with its immense estates, and with its high prescriptive rights; and which surrounds and protects the thrones from which emanates the authority to exercise this power. There is nothing of greatness, of power, of wealth, of distinction, or in the forms of either, as exhibited in the European world, which is not in part, in a very large part, composed of the wrongs done to labor. This is as inevitably true as the fact that labor in Europe is deprived of two thirds of its fair reward, and can only be proved otherwise with the disproof of this fact.

It can not but be seen that the bearing of this difference in the cost of money and labor in the United States and Europe, on a system of public economy for the United States, is direct, potent, and sweeping. It is two to one in the producing powers of Europe and other foreign parts against the producing powers of the United States, it being assumed that money and labor are the active powers employed. All the other powers which lie back of these

as a basis, exist in a like proportion of force in these quarters relative to each other. It is a practical commercial principle, that is now under consideration-a principle that operates uniformly all the world over, and which never fails to be energetic in accomplishing its results. It is the principle of competition in trade. Every merchant in New York, or in any other city, or in any other place, knows, that he can not stand against a competitor, who can sell goods at a profit for less than what his goods of the same kind cost him. He is ruined by the competition, if he continues it. The principle is the same in its application to nations as to individuals.

With the wide margin of a power of three to one in labor, and of three to two in money, or of two to one in both, in favor of Europe against the United States, it must be seen, that a small fraction. of the power of this difference, added to that which is equal to the entire power of the United States, and brought skilfully and effectively to bear on any one point of the rival interests of this country, will crush us in that particular, and in every other when like attempts are made, unless we have an American commercial system, such as is described in another chapter, to defend us. Europe, of course, will never use the whole of the power of this difference against us. It would not be necessary to gain her end. A fraction of it will do. And in all particulars in which it is done, she has us entirely in her power, and may command her own prices for all that we are thus forced to buy of her. It is in this way, that we pay dearer under Free Trade than under Protection, for the same articles, besides the abstraction of the cost from the country, and the suppression, in a like amount, of American labor and trade.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CLAIMS OF AMERICAN LABOR FOR PROTECTION.

Difference in the social Position of Labor in Europe and America.-It is a Commercial Principle, that requires the Protection of American Labor, and therefore imperative -The Rule of graduating Protection. -How Foreign Policies bear on the vulnerable Points of the United States-British Free Trade a Protective Policy -The Abatement of Duties in Great Britain requires Increase, rather than Diminution. in the United States, because it is made for Protection.-Importance of Skill in Public Economy, to American Statesmen.-The Advantages of Free Labor over Slave Labor.-European Labor in a like Position with Slave Labor-The best Rule for Protection is that they who ask for it, should have it.-Adam Smith's Argument for Free Trade. is One for Protection. He concedes and begs the Question -Adam Smith and Daniel Webster, as to the Effect of increased Investments of Capital in producing Establishments on Labor, and on the Profits of Capital.-The United States can never dispense with Protection, so long as Money and Labor here cost more than elsewhere.-The Cry of "Monopoly."-Demagogues.

LABOR is the only thing, in the United States, that requires protection; or in the protection of labor, all things else that need it, are also protected. It may be, and doubtless is, otherwise in Europe, so long as they propose to maintain their state of society.

European economists have never invested labor with the attributes, nor placed it in the position, of capital. We differ from them in this, not only by doing what they have not done in this particular, but by making it the parent of all other capital, as shown in a preceding chapter. What they call capital, and which is commonly so called, is placed by them, not only first as to the dignity of its position, but first and chief as the great cominercial agent of the world. Labor is thrust by them into an abject condition, and made to sustain a servile relation to capital. The legislation of Europe corresponds with this. All attempts of labor there, particularly in Great Britain, by association and combination, by trades-unions, and by strikes, to rise and assert its rights, have always been visited with legal penalties for their suppression; whereas, the association and combination of capitalists for their mutual advantage, and to fortify their position against these struggles of the laboring classes, are not only tolerated, but legalized and protected. Enough has already been said, in former chapters, to show the degradation, the hardships, the deprivations, and the miseries of European labor. Capital is the great thing there; la

bor is the great thing here. Capital there is the only thing thought of in the institution and support of a protective system; labor here is the only thing that requires protection. Capital there is a great political power; labor here occupies that position, and may properly be called THE great power of the country; whereas, labor in Europe has little or no power; and as to protection, it has none, but is made the slave of capital-is the slave of society. In Europe the fruits of labor, that is, the accumulations of commercial values, have been wrested from the hand that created them, and not only appropriated to the use of the spoilers, but is employed by them to force the producers of this great wealth to go on producing, chiefly for the benefit of those who have done the wrong. The producers are held in a servile relation to their own creations, and by the application of misnomers in public economy, the world is made to believe, that capital is the first and great thing; that capital occupies the position of the mainspring of society; and that labor is indebted to capital, the work of its own hands, to save it from starving. Thus the natural order of things is reversed, and the fundamental and most important relations of human society are overturned. By the studious use and persevering application of misnomers for centuries, and by the general consent of mankind, a grand heresy to nature has taken the place of her own teachings, and acquired the authority of orthodox belief, by default and weakness of the injured party. Nevertheless, the truth of the case only lies in abeyance, and flashes forth in full blaze the moment it is challenged. There is not probably a reader of this work, who, though he may never have thought of it before, though he may have adopted directly the opposite opinion, and cherished it all his life, will not confess, that labor, and not capital, is the original and fundamental power of society and of the commercial world; that it is itself capital, and the parent of all other capital-the parent of all commercial values.

We proceed to observe, that it is a commercial principle that invokes Protection for American labor. And because it is so, it can not err, is infallible, imperative. The principle grows out of the facts already established, to wit, that the average cost of labor in the United States is three to one of the average cost in Europe and other foreign parts, with which we have commercial intercourse. It has been shown, indeed, that the difference is greater than this; but this is sufficient for the argument. It has also been shown, that the value or cost of money, and of all other capital, in the

United States, is in the same proportion greater than the value or cost of the same things in foreign parts. This must necessarily be true, because every species of property, money and other, is bought by labor, is its product, and is therefore estimated by the cost, or price, or quantity of labor. But inasmuch as money-capital is the common currency of the commercial world, it is allowed, that it is fairly worth more than other capital in proportion to its cost; and notwithstanding that this allowance applies equally to the United States as to foreign parts, it is nevertheless proposed, as a boon to opponents, to rate the money of Europe, in this argument, as two to three of the money of this country, in its cost, and consequently in its value. This, as before determined, makes the joint cost of money and labor in Europe as one to two of their joint cost in the United States; or the difference is one hundred per cent. in favor of Europe against the United States, in these two things as producing powers in both quarters.

It is convenient to represent these two agents as the common producing powers in combination all the world over, inasmuch as money is the representative of every other species of capital as a common currency for them all; and inasmuch as money and labor are the agents usually brought together for purposes of production. It will be seen, therefore, on these premises, as before shown, that the producing powers of Europe are at least two to one in forcethey are in fact greater-against the producing powers of the United States, because they cost only half as much.

Suppose two merchants side by side in New York, or in any other city or place, trading in the same articles, and that these articles cost one of them twice as much as they cost the other. Which has the best chance in open and free competition? Which will

Which will fall before the other? It is plain enough, that the one whose articles cost twice as much as those of the other, must shut up shop. He could not stand, even though the difference in the cost of his articles be less than 100 per cent.; though it be 50; though it be 25; though it be 10; though it be 5 per cent. If there be a vigorous and determined competition, he might fall, and be driven out of the market, with a difference of 2 or 1 per cent.; or even of one half-cent per cent. Such is the force and effect of competition between private persons in the same market; and such precisely is the force and effect of competition between commercial nations, the aggregate of whose trade with each other is always made up of private and independent transactions,

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