3. But this whole argument is a false one, for the further reason that our home laborers do not have to compete with "_the pauper labor_" of any country on earth; since the _actual paupers_ of no country on earth are engaged in producing commodities for export to any other country. They produce few, or no, other commodities than those they themselves consume; and ordinarily not even those.
There are a great many millions of _actual paupers_ in the world. In some of the large provinces of British India, for example, it is said that nearly half the population are paupers. But I think that the commodities they are producing for export to other countries than their own, have never been heard of.
The term, "pauper labor," is therefore a false one. And when these robbers--the employers of home labor--talk of protecting their laborers against the competition of "_the pauper labor_" of other countries, they do not mean that they are protecting them against the competition of _actual paupers_; but only against the competition of that immense body of laborers, in all parts of the world, _who are kept constantly on the verge of pauperism, or starvation_; who have little, or no, means of subsistence, except such as their employers see fit to give them,--which means are usually barely enough to keep them in a condition to labor.
These are the only "pauper laborers," from whose competition our own laborers are sought to be protected. They are quite as badly off as our own laborers; and are in equal need of "protection."
What, then, is to be done? This policy of excluding foreign commodities from our markets, is a game that all other governments can play at, as well as our own. And if it is the duty of our government to "protect" our laborers against the competition of "the pauper labor," so-called, of all other countries, it is equally the duty of every other government to "protect" its laborers against the competition of the so-called "pauper labor" of all other countries. So that, according to this theory, each nation must either shut out entirely from its markets the products of all other countries; or, at least, lay such heavy duties upon them, as will, _in some measure_, "protect" its own laborers from the competition of the "pauper labor" of all other countries.