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 those of the half million may be
increased? For an increase cannot be made in the wage rate of one class
without a proportionate decrease in that of others. But the wages
of labor in protected industries are not permanently increased by
protection. Another very important factor in ascertaining the value
of wages is the continuance or the steadiness of the employment. Two
dollars a day for half the year is no more than a dollar a day for the
whole year. Employment in most protected industries is spasmodic. In the
leading industries for the past ten years employment has not averaged
more than three fourths of the time, and not at very high wages. Within
the last year manufacturers of silk, carpets, nails and many other
articles of iron, of various kinds of glassware and furniture, and coal
producers have shut down their works for a part of the time, or reduced
the hours of labor. Production has been too great. To stop this and