New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-08-27
uction for transportation, duty or commits

Five years since we made, according to
Mr.. Walkers own admission, no less than
100000 tuns Of iron, whereas FIVE years
previously We had made only 100000, and
this increase was the effect of the tariff OF
1912. Protection had therefore produced
competition for the supply of the world
with iron, with corresponding tendency to
reduction of price, and it therefore needed
but few years more of similar protection
to bring into activity the vast mineral de-
posts of the country from Maine to Ala
bama, and from the Ocean to Missouri and
Minnesota. making everywhere a market
for the products of the farm and the planta-
ton, with constant increase in the facility
for obtaining the machinery of produc-
tion-pows and harrows, railroads and
steam engines.
This. however, did not suit the advo-
Gates of British free trade. Britain de-
sired to have monopoly of the power to
supply the world with iron anu with cloth,
| and they would have been faithless to their
Birmingham and Manchester employers
had they permitted the farmers and plant
ers of this country to escape from her
! grasp. Accordingly, tables were published
showing the vast extent to which the agri-
cultural portion of the community were
taxed by domestic competition in the prOduc-
ton of iron, and it was shown most clearly
by Mr.. Walker that tun of nails, the sell
ing price Of which was about 500, was en-
HANGED in price by the tariff of 1912 no less
than sos, while coal was increased in price
to an amount greater than the price at which
it sold at the various places throughout the
country at which it was produced. Like all
the British free trade school, he insisted
that the consumerpaid all the duty, and great
rs were the absurdities brought forward by
him in support Of this view, they were in
dorsed by all the British free trade journals
of the country.
The advocates of American free trade,
on the contrary, insisted that the foreign
producer of iron paid the cost of getting TO
market, and that the only effect of the
then existing high duty was to compel the
iron masters Of England to pay into our
Treasury large amount OF money that
otherwise would have gone into their ocn
pockets, while the only effect of n change
Of system would be to enable them to
pocket the difference, and to throw upon
our own people the cost of maintaining
the Government. Which of these views
was true, our readers shall now have the
means of Judging.
Two years since the price ofrailrOad iron
in Walc, was $50 so, or Ca 15s. per tun
the duty on which was about 81, whereas
in 1916, when the tariff Of that year was
, passed. it had been about Sl5 per tun
Under the circumstances, application was
made to Congress to fix the duty at wha
it had been at the date Of the present
revenue system, or at least to add six OF
eight dollars to the amount levied, raising
it to thirteen or fourteen dollars per tun
Congress was then told @ So long as domes
tic competition is maintained, we shall
E be enabled steadily to improve our machi-
merry, and iron will not only continue low
but there will be a steady tendency to fall
in price but if the English iron master,
be permitted to destroy our competition, the
price of iron will 90 up, and the money
that should 60 into the Treasury will 60
into their pockets" To all these repre-
sensations Congress turned deaf ear
and the consequence has been that step by
step our iron masters have beenruined and
their works have passed into the hands Of
the Sheriff. Essex County, but lately the
seat of thriving manufacture, is now al
most entirely silent. Boonton has been
sold, for we think one fifth of its cost, and
this after having distributed three mil
lions of dollars in wages. Armstrong and
Clarion Counties have witnessed the down-
fall Of forty out Of Jorty-ttro t@rncces,
twenty of which will shortly have been
sold by the Sheriff within period of
twelve months. Such has been the case
in almost every portion of the Union.
Everywhere the men who were engaged
in establishing competition for the supply of
the world with iron have been ruined, and
the dOmestics make of iron has now fallen
from $4,000 to about 100000 tuns, when
it might have risen to a million and half
, of tuns, and would have done so but for