We must face the issue on a realistic rather than an academic basis. keeping the extremely important fact in mind that the high wage levels in the United States are not equaled by any other country in the world. In the wooltextile industry. for example. wages paid factory employees in this country are two and onehalf times as great as those paid in England and 10 times those paid in Japan. Assuming there is a reasonable comparable degree of efficiency in manufacture. a free exchange of products means that we either must bring European or Asiatic wages to a scale substantially equal to ours or face a drastic reduction in our own wage rates. We pass laws to limit the number of immigrant workers who may be admitted to this country. yet we permit the products made by those unadmitted aliens to be shipped here and sold at prices even lower than the cost of American production. To be sure. under this Trade Agreement Act the President is empowered to make any agreements with such other nations as he sees fit. Yet I am not unmindful of the fact that the one who is foremost in negotiating these treaties is our own Secretary of State.
Keywords matched
immigrant Asiatic