wages.[1] The only doubt that arises is the true economic value of our high rate of wages. If we can protect the worker by
- ↑ Mr. H. E. Miles, Chairman of the Fair Tariff League, Racine, Wisconsin, in testifying before the Committee on Finance of the United States Senate on January 23rd, 1922, states as follows:
“Contrast these facts with the tariff attitude of the hosiery and knit goods people. One of their typical representatives declares that they cannot exist without a further increase in their tariff, because, says he, average wages in the United States in this industry are $30 per week, in England $17.40 per week, in Germany $5.50, in France $7.14. Were he to tell the truth, he would say that the wage cost per dozen pairs in the United States is about 2 cents per pair on socks and twice that on women's silk hose of ordinary quality, and correspondingly more for ‘full-fashioned.’ He pays this; he does not pay $30 per week, nor does any country pay less than he does per pair. That is why one fourth of all the hosiery and knit goods made in the United States is exported the world over; that is why we exported hosiery last year to the amount of $4,000,000 and imported only $1,000,000, the imports being mostly novelties, golf stockings, etc., that we did not care to make. That is why our knit goods of all sorts go freely all over the world and substantially no knit underwear is imported but only fancy novelties for outer wear.”
He stated further:
“The story of hosiery is repeated in almost every other industry.
“I have here from the National Acme Co. a piece of metal 31⁄2 inches in diameter and 4 or more inches long cut inside and out into difficult shapes. It would take a skilled man a day or two at a forge to make this. Now a man runs 15 machines, each making one of these in two minutes, so the man averages 7 per minute. It would be difficult to figure the wage cost, and yet he gets 50 to 70 cents per hour. This man does the work of 500 men at hand forges in the olden days. The cost to-day is 2 cents per piece; that was once $5 or $10. And yet the overgreedy and dissimulating tariff beneficiary will compare the $4.50 to $5.50 per day that the American workmen earn at 2 cents per piece with wages in other countries where the net cost is higher.
“Here are other difficult but smaller pieces. Figure the labor on these. One man runs 15 machines, thereby averaging 7 pieces per second.”
Also:
“It seems to us pertinent to note that some of our own domestic manufacturers have in the past sold their goods at 30, 40, 50 and rarely 60 per cent less price to the foreign consumer than to the American consumer. They call it ‘dumping.’ When anybody takes 30 to 50 off he is not dumping; he is making five profits off his fellow countrymen because of price-fixing behind the tariff wall, and selling abroad at a single profit or cost.”[a 1]
- ↑ Tariff—H. R. 7456. Hearing before the Committee on Finance. United States Senate. Part 58.
Government Printing Office. Washington, D. C.
