called "pauper-labor" argument for "protection"; or of the theory, which has proved so popular and effective in the United States, for justifying the enactment of high tariffs, that the rate of wages paid for labor is the factor that is mainly determinative of the cost of the resulting product; and that, therefore, for a country of average high wages, the defense of a protective tariff against a country of average low wages is absolutely necessary as a condition for the successful prosecution by the former of its industries.
Wages, on the average, in Mexico, are from one half to two thirds less than what are paid in similar occupations in the United States; and yet in comparison with the United States the price of almost all products of industry in Mexico is high. Thus, in the city of Mexico, where wages rule higher than in almost any part of the republic, the average daily wages in some of the principal occupations during the year 1885 were as follow: Laborers, porters, etc., forty to fifty cents; masons, seventy-five cents to one dollar; assistants, thirty-seven and a half to fifty cents; teamsters, fifty cents; blacksmiths, one dollar and fifty cents; printers, one dollar; saddle and harness makers, sixty-two cents; tailors, seventy-five cents; painters, eighty-seven and a half cents; weavers in the cotton-mills at Tepic and Santiago, four dollars per
