Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-09-05

the present tariff, but pointedly selected
tor reprobatlon by strange policy
which, whilst it raised the duties on most
other articles, reduced that on iron near
ly 100 per cent.-From 1904 until 1915,
it was at seventeen and an half per cent
and until 1916 at l5--a duty which might
have saved these interesting establish
ments thus apparently destroyed by de-
sign. Pigs and castings in 1916, paid
fifteen per cent. ad valorem bar iron
nine dollars ton, equal to, say nine per
cent. ad yalorem; in 1918 the duties
were increased to fifty cents hundred
on pigs, seventy-ive on castings and bar
iron: in this house it was raised to twen-
ty dollars a ton by alority of forty-se-
ven, but reduced in the senate to fifteen.
Had the duty been a proportionate one
in 1916, a rate lower than the one now
proposed would have been sufficient to
have insured domestic supply; but the
reports OF the treasury present US with
facts which call for immediate and eti-
Gent interference. In 1918 the impor-
tation of bar iron exceeded sixteen thou
sand tons-in 1919 it amounted to near
twenty thousand. The decrease of ad
valorem importations in this year has ex-
ceeded 100000, while the increase
OF bar iron has been near four thousand
tons. Comparing it with cotton, there
are many more national reasons for lis
protectlon--the materials of one can be
exported, but the other cannot: we send
out of the country near S2,OOo,ooo,
annually, for an article we could make
at home, and out of materials perfectly
worthless i'll themselves. The rate OF
duty is not unreasonable in itself, or dis
proportionate to other items In this bill,
or the old tariff. On the first of this
month the wholesale price OF it was, &C
cording to the NewYork and Phiadel-
phia prices current, from 100 to 10 dol
lars ton; calculating on the price at
the place of importation, the fairest mode
OF liking an ad valorem duty, it would be
only twenty-five per cent the same as
on cottons and woolens now, and eight
per cent. less than is representative less
than on leather and paper, in the pre-
sent, and ten less than is proposed In
this bill on the former; considering It as
an article abandoned in the former tariff
That what will restore the declining will
not re-animate the dead that 4 81
embarrassment and distress OF the last
year, the importations have rapidly IN
creased while others diminish. l con-
fidently hope that to afiording 10 this
protection equal to other articles, no OBJ
lection will or can be made by those who
hrofess to 6e. friendly TO the system.
Iron is certainly an article Of necessi-
ty, but not more SO than clothing; it is
called raw material--we would as soon
apply this term to ball Of cotton yarn
or piece of broad cloth. This word
raw material is strangely misunderstood.
The glass cutter calls plain glass the
iron founder, pigs; the rope-maker,
hemp and flax; the copper-smith and
brazier, brass and copper in sheets and
still bottoms, raw materials; while the
makers of these articles call them manu-
features, and petition for protection.
believe the safer rule is to consider that
which is taken from the earth as the raw
material, and every change in its form or
value, by labor, as manufacture, equal
~ entitled to encouragement. 1t is Ger
tainly true policy to afford it 20 every
thing which can be made at home, espe-
cially when the material can never be-
come an article of export. The extent
of the protection TO be regulated by the
amount Of importation--tiie deficiency OF
revenue supplied by an excise on the
manufacture protected. The increased
duty on molasses has excited much OPP
position and some feeling, Of those who
seem to consider it partial and oppres
sive. | must ask candid review ofthe
principle on which this bill has been
framed, the situation in which the COM
mittee has been placed, and, with an as
surance that no feelings of mine can be
gratified by bearing hard on my native
country, beg them to look at this item
on national grounds.-Pressed with Pc
titions from every class ofmanufacturers,
praying for high duties on foreign arti-
cles which interfered with theirs, sensi-
bic that something ought to be done
vet beset with difficulties on all sides,
unaided and alone, we were thrown on
forlorn hope. A partial, local system
would have insured its own deleat--a
general one might impair the revenue;
to avoid that, to shape our course to
meet the interests of nation SO widely
extended as this-one might almost say
TWENTY-FIVE different nations, divided al
least into great sections, some engaged
81, -, lt,,pA