448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



they have kept the prices of most important materials, which are 

 necessary in the processes of domestic industry, far above those of 

 our competitors, promoting their prosperity and retarding our 

 own progress. 



Yet our enormous advantages in most of the conditions which 

 are conducive to human welfare are such that we thrive. Our 

 bad methods of taxation are like a pebble in the shoe of a runner, 

 keeping him painfully in the second place, when, if relieved, he 

 could lead the field without an effort. 



It is due to these favorable conditions that the paradoxical form 

 of statement represents an absolute truth — viz., that our high rates 

 of wages are due to our very low cost of general production. 



This leads us directly to the consideration of the conditions of 

 production, especially in the manufacturing arts, from which our 

 ample profits or high wages are or may be derived, if our moder- 

 ate taxes are rightly adjusted to our conditions. We possess so 

 great an advantage in our position and in our control of the pro- 

 duction of metals, of fibers, and of food products, that there can, 

 of course, be no equalization of wages in this country with those 

 of others, because we could only equalize by reducing our own. 

 The tendency of all the forces in action, when not artificially ob- 

 structed, is to raise the rate of wages, to diminish the margin of 

 profits, and to equalize the conditions of working people to their 

 great advantage. If we must wait for the equalization of wages 

 to those of other countries, as is so often urged, before undertak- 

 ing tariff reform, we may wait forever. It is our very advantage 

 in high rates of wages and low cost of production which might 

 enable us to proceed earnestly, safely, and surely to absolute free 

 trade within less than a generation, and to adopt that policy for 

 the very purpose, not of equalizing, but of maintaining our huge 

 advantage over every other nation. 



One may sometimes feel humiliated when one sees men of skill, 

 capital, and ability trembling before the competition of what they 

 call pauper labor. Every man of affairs, every manufacturer, 

 every employer of labor, avoids low-priced or pauper labor in his 

 own work as much as possible ; he knows that it is costly ; he 

 knows that, when he can command skilled labor at the highest 

 price which is warranted by the market for the product, he will 

 do his work with that kind of labor at the least cost. When it 

 becomes necessary to run works on short time and to discharge a 

 part of the workmen, who are the ones discharged ? Not the 

 high-priced men; they can not be spared; it is the high-priced 

 men whose work is not affected by hard times. Every man makes 

 his own rate of wages by his skill, aptitude, and industry ; and 

 those who do the work in the best manner get constant employ- 

 ment. The incapable are sometimes subject to compulsory idle- 



