ection. Heaven save a country
from a system which begrudges to the shivering poor the blankets to make
them comfortable in the winter and the cold!

Secondly, protection has diminished the income of the laborer from his
wages. The first factor in the ascertainment of the value of wages is
their purchasing power, or how much can be bought with them. If in one
country the wages are five dollars a day and in another only one dollar,
if the laborer can in the one country with the one dollar, purchase more
of the necessary articles required in daily consumption, he, in fact,
is better paid than the former in the other who gets five dollars a day.
Admit for a moment that protection raises the wages of the laborer, it
also raises the price of nearly all the necessaries of life, and what he
makes in wages he more than loses in the increase of prices of what he
is obliged to buy. As already stated, a head of a family who earns $400
per year is compelled to pay $100 more for what he needs, on account of
protection. What difference is it to him whether the $100 are taken out
of his wages before they are paid, or taken from him afterward in the
increased price of articles he cannot get along without? In both cases
he really receives only $300 for his year's labor. The statistics show
that the average increased cost of twelve articles most required in
daily consumption in 1874 over 1860 was ninety-two per cent., while the
average increase of wages of eight artisans, cabinet-makers, coopers,
carpenters, painters, shoemakers, tail-ors, tanners, and tinsmiths, was
only sixty per cent., demonstrating that the purchasing power of labor
had under protection in thirteen years depreciated 19.5 per cent.
But protection has not even raised the nominal wages in most of the
unprotected industries. I find that the wages of the farm hand, the day
laborer, and the ordinary artisan are in most places now no higher than
they were in 1860.

But it is confidently asserted that the wages of laborers in the
protected industries are higher because of protection. Admit it. I have
not the figures for 1880, but in 1870 there were not 500,000 of them;
but of the laborers in other industries there were 12,000,000, exclusive
of those in agriculture, who were 6,000,000 more. Why should the wages
of the half million be increased beyond their natural rate, while
those of the others remain unchanged? More--why should the wages of
the 18,000,000 be diminished that