But it is confidently asserted that the wages of laborers in the protected industries are higher because of protection. Admit it. I have not the figures for 1880, but in 1870 there were not 500,000 of them; but of the laborers in other industries there were 12,000,000, exclusive of those in agriculture, who were 6,000,000 more. Why should the wages of the half million be increased beyond their natural rate, while those of the others remain unchanged? More--why should the wages of the 18,000,000 be diminished that those of the half million may be increased? For an increase cannot be made in the wage rate of one class without a proportionate decrease in that of others. But the wages of labor in protected industries are not permanently increased by protection. Another very important factor in ascertaining the value of wages is the continuance or the steadiness of the employment. Two dollars a day for half the year is no more than a dollar a day for the whole year. Employment in most protected industries is spasmodic. In the leading industries for the past ten years employment has not averaged more than three fourths of the time, and not at very high wages. Within the last year manufacturers of silk, carpets, nails and many other articles of iron, of various kinds of glassware and furniture, and coal producers have shut down their works for a part of the time, or reduced the hours of labor. Production has been too great. To stop this and prevent the reduction of profits through increasing competition, the first thing done is to diminish the production, thus turning employes out of employment. Wages are diminished or stopped until times are flush again. With the time estimated in which the laborers are not at work, the average rate of wages for the ten years preceding 1880 did not equal the wages in similar industries for the ten years preceding 1860 under a revenue tariff. Indeed, in many branches the wages have not been so high as those received by the pauper labor, so-called, in Europe. But it is manifest that the wages in these industries cannot for any long period be higher than the average rate in the community, for, if the wages be higher, labor will crowd into the employments thus favored until the rate is brought down to the general level. So true is this, that it is admitted by many protectionists that wages are not higher in the protected industries than in others.