New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-11-24
PROTECT.oN FOR IRON-MAKIHG.

throughout the last six months, been published
in these columns. Those essays either justify
themselves or they do not and we are content
to abide the public Judgment on their merits.
We have supposed that no Misrepresentation
of their positions could be gross enough to
shake our predetermination on this point; but
The Cincinnati Gdsette has caused u.s. for once,
to waive it. Our knowledge and admiration OF
that journal while it was conducted successfully
by Charles Hammond and John c. Wright
either of whom would have cut off his right
hand rather than permit its columns to be de-
based to such uses as they now subserve-im-
pels us to treat its inculcations with respect
nowise deserved by their intrinsic merits.
In our essay on "Iron,n we quoted from the
official Report of Mr. Abram s. Hewitt "a most
intelligent and capable Iron master of Demo
cratic pOlitics) on Iron making in Europe and Ill
America respectively, in connection with the
last Worlds Exposition at Paris 1S67,) as fol-
lows: r.
eve have seen that the cost OF making iron in England
Belgium and France, at the present tme varies from
SO l0 to So per tun, and 81 additional sutoes 70 pay
It's of transportation to the seaboard OF the United
States At these ports American iron cannot possibly
be delivered at less cost $50 in gold against $40 in
gold for the foreign articleI"
Now we assume that no man qualified to
write Police Reports-muCh less Political Econ
omy-could possibly fail to understand that
the Iron hero contemplated is Bar Iron, or, Gas
| we expressly stated in our essay in question:
the average cost of merchant oar that
which is mainly used by blacksmiths and tool
makers-and not the crude, low, imperfect form
of the metal known as Pig Iron, which is
scarcely half 80 valuable. Can you conceive OF
person allowed to discuss Political Economy
| in the editorial columns of q journal once
respectable and influential who does mt know
| that the metal which is produced Mt a cost of
&c 10i to E8 per tun Gin England, Belgium
and France is not Pig but Bar front And
vet, on his naked, palpably false assumption
| that Mr.. Hewitt asserts and we indorse that
| Pig Iron costs $40 in Gold in Europe, and
cannot be produced here for less than 500,
this writer proceeds to say that
"By this statement appears that ne Americans i9iron
producer protection Of go per f right array.
or the infant wW die"
Surely, argument is wasted on misstatcments
| so reckless. Our readers know that we have
nowhere intimated that Pig Iron needs any
| further Protection than it now has, which is
exactly the 80 per tun accorded it by the
Calhoun Lowndes Tariff of 1916 (raised in 1918
to $40, and in 1923 to SGD. Whoever asserts
that we ever argued or intimated the Amer
lean pig-irOn producer must have Protec-
" ton of $50 per tun right away, or the infant
"will die,p asserts the precise opposite OF
| truth. We have no doubt that some Pig Iron
would be made in this country if there were
no duty on imported Iron, more if there
| were light Revenue duty, and still
| more under higher Protective duty And, be-
| leving it the interest of the American People
to satisfy their need of Iron with the possible
| exception of some rare varieties whereof the
ores are not yet found among us) by smelling
from their own beds, with their own Coal, by
means of their own laborers, wearing their own
Fabrics, and eating their own Fruits and Vcgeta-
bles rather than those grown in Europe, we adj
vocate the policy which clearly tends to secure
this result, as the rapid multiplication of fur
naces all over the great West serves to de-
monstrate. We are confident that not less
than one hundred wholly new furnaces have
been erected and set to work within the year
| now closing, on the waters of the
Mississippi alone, and that at least fUo hun
bred more will be in 1870 if it be understood,
early in the approaching session, that the
Tariff is to be simply let alone by the present
! Congress. And we believe that this is the right
and sure way to cheaper Iron, provided Iron
can be made cheaper without essentially Teduc-
| ing the wages of American Labor. In other
words: we hold that more and more men of capac-
| ity and MEANS whether they be PrOtectonists
or not will be drawn into smelling Pig Iron,
whenever and 80 long as the profits of this in
dustry exceed the average Of those of other
pursuits, and that thus the price of Pig Iron,
like that of Wheat or Pork, will conform to
and be governed by the cost of producing it
with O profit regulated by that which may be
realized in other branches Of industry. If this
be not the dictate of law as constant and
immutable as gravitation, then we are grossly
ignorant, not merely of Political Economy, but
of the motives which govern human conduct.
And, if we are not thus ignorant, then they
who, by threatening reduction of the duty,
impel capitalists to keep out of ron-making,
are the real obstacles to cheapening Iron by
the true, enduring method of increasing,
difusing and diyersifying its production on our
own soil
We must correct one more Of The Gasettes
grOsser misstatenents Ii says;
"By the tariff statistcs ia the article 1t viii be seen
that the pig iron infant has boon protected 1915 by
duty ranging from $40 to tl2 So and which is now S9
This nursing has continued for IS years,
and pig iron Is stu represented as scky infant that
would expire If this stImulaut were withdrawn"
Now, nothing like that will be "seen" by
our statistics, simply because nothing like that
is true: We stated that, Whenever the Protec-
tiOnists zero in pOwer they had imposed spe-
ci1c duties on Pig Iron, which were never less
than the 80 per tun imposed by the Calhoun
Lowndes Tariff of 1916. and by the present