328 LAND AND LABOR. 



port that I wish to examine. On page 27 is found 

 the following suggestive statement : 



" One large manufacturer stated that lie had at one time be- 

 lieved that prison labor must, of necessity, injure outside labor. 

 He knew, he said, that Rice & Hutchings had the labor of 100 

 prisoners in the State Prison for 40 cents a day a very small 

 sum to pay for labor, and at first glance would seem to give 

 them great advantage ; but the great drawback is, that, by the 

 terms of their contract, they were obliged to pay their men all 

 the year round, whether they are employed or not." 



If forty cents a day, for the year round, amounting 

 to $123 20 per annum, is the great drawback upon 

 the employment of prison labor, pray what must be 

 the yearly wagesof the average boot and shoemaker 

 when out of prison ? Certainly it can not be so large 

 as to change the well known fact that free labor is 

 cheaper than slave, because, in the case of the slave, 

 he is guaranteed his subsistence from year to year for 

 the work he does ; but the free man, under present 

 conditions, has no such assurance. 



Then upon the point of the insignificance of the ef- 

 fect which the competition of 13,186 persons working 

 in prison, at forty cents a day, has upon the work of 

 those outside, as stated on page 24, I quote the effect 

 of competition as shown in the agricultural volume 

 of United States Census Keports, 1860, as follows :- 



" As long as we continue to export wheat, no matter to how 

 small an extent, the price in Europe will regulate the price in 

 this country. The price obtained in England for the 295,241 

 l>u>h(?lsof wheat which we exported in 1859 determined the 

 price of our whole crop of over 173,000,000 of bushels raised 

 that year. The price of the one and three fourths bushels < \- 



