Speech #500046032

Last year the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company paid a dividend of $2.250.000over 200 per cent.-and the Government received in revenue from imported coPper pigs the princely sum of $40. And this same company has shipped copper to England. and. after paying the transportation charges. they have sold it at a less price than it is sold in New York. And yet they have the effrontery to say that they can not compete against the pauper labor of Europe. According to the report of the commissioner of labor of Michigan for 1887. we find that 47 per cent. of the farms in that State are mortgaged. Here we have the spectacle of the farmers of Michigan eking out an arduous existence. with half their farms covered by mortgages. while the copper and iron trusts of that State. to whom the war tariff forces the farmer to pay tribute. are making annual profits all the way from 50 to 225 per cent. It passes my comprehension how any man can vote to uphold a system of taxation under which this state of affairs is maintained. The pretense that we can not compete with the cheap labor of Europe. in my judgment. is entirely unwarranted. Why. sir. pauper labor is unprofitable labor to employ. And the comparisons between the rate of wages in this country and Europe. which are brought forth by interested corporations and trusts to show a necessity for a high tariff. are. in most instances. extremely misleading and unfair. Because one man demands $2 a day for his labor and another man $1 a day. it does not follow that it is more profitable to employ the one who works for the cheaper wages.