Inquirer.
Answer.—This question has been answered, substantially, several times before, but the following extract from the speech made before the Fair Trade Congress, Leamington, by Robert P. Porter, formerly editor of Our Curiosity Shop, author of “The West in 1880,” and member of the late United States Tariff Commission, is so much in point that it is given here:
“In the cotton industry need I say that we have practically robbed England of 50,000,000 of customers, increased the number employed in our mills to 200,000 persons, and, in the last two decades, doubled the value of the product. Imports of cotton goods have steadily declined from 227,000,000 yards in 1860 to 23,000,000 yards in 1881, while exports reached the same year 150,000,000 yards. Has the consumer been injured? No! With the exception of a few special lines which we do not manufacture, cotton goods are as cheap, and even cheaper, with us than in England. A more remarkable progress has been made in the silk industry, which before the Morrill tariff gave employment to 5,000 persons; in 1880 it employed over 30,000, a six-fold increase. The importation of silk goods has remained stationary since 1860 at about £6,000,000, the production of our own mills increasing from £1,200,000 in 1860 to over £8,000,000 in 1880. Yet the cost of the manufactured goods to the consumer, estimated on a gold basis, has steadily declined at a much greater rate than the cost of the raw material.”
Further on Mr. Potter says: “I have this year made a careful comparison of the average earnings of labor in the important branches of industry in Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, and Holland, with the average earnings of the same class of workers in the United States. In prosecuting this inquiry I have visited the industrial centers of these countries, and am prepared to further substantiate my conclusions with details if necessary. I find that in the United States wages are from 60 to 150 per cent higher in the various industrial pursuits than they are in the mentioned European countries. At the same time the difference between the purchasing power of a dollar in free trade and protection countries is absurdly exaggerated by the Cobden Clubites. In Germany and France (under protective tariffs), especially in the former country, the workmen can live far cheaper than in England. The purchasing power of a dollar, so far as the wants of the working man is concerned, when the cost and quality of food is taken into consideration, is about the same in the United States as in England, though wages are often 100 per cent higher in America.”
HALBIG, THE SCULPTOR.
Chicago, Ill.
Please give a sketch of John Halbig, the sculptor.
Otto F. H. Masch.
Answer.—John Halbig was born in Bavaria in 1814, and educated at the Munich Academy, where he is now professor of statuary. Since 1846 he has modeled more than 1,000 works, chiefly busts. The most noted is the lions at the Gate of Victory, Munich. In 1873 the King of Germany ordered him to make a colossal group representing the crucifixion, to be placed on a lofty mountain peak overlooking Oberammergau, the village where the “Passion Play” is so religiously represented.