Their compensation, as it may
be affected by the operation of tariff laws, should at all times be
scrupulously kept in view; and yet with slight reflection they will not
overlook the fact that they are consumers with the rest; that they too
have their own wants and those of their families to supply from their
earnings, and that the price of the necessaries of life, as well as the
amount of their wages, will regulate the measure of their welfare and
comfort.
But the reduction of taxation demanded should be so measured as not to
necessitate or justify either the loss of employment by the working-man
or the lessening of his wages; and the profits still remaining to the
manufacturer after a necessary readjustment should furnish no excuse
for the sacrifice of the interests of his employees, either in their
opportunity to work or in the diminution of their compensation. Nor can
the worker in manufactures fail to understand that while a high tariff
is claimed to be necessary to allow the payment of remunerative wages,
it certainly results in a very large increase in the price of nearly all
sorts of manufactures, which, in almost countless forms, he needs for
the use of himself and his family. He receives at the desk of his
employer his wages, and perhaps before he reaches his home is obliged,
in a purchase for family use of an article which embraces his own labor,
to return in the payment of the increase in price which the tariff
permits the hard-earned compensation of many days of toil.
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