New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-01-29
And sigh for what is not"

NIECIHL
We have given several notices of this Report,
embracing some general and some special ex-
aminations of its propositions, and we are sat
isfied that, within the scope OF our present.
ments, they are just, and, for immediate pur-
poses, sufficient. The Commissioners homies
of the last two or three years have made their
fate, and even the last of them has already
gone into the bygOnes Of public interest; but
the Office remains, and the license OF its ad-
ministratOn is likely to continue while it re-
mains under the control of the present Com
missioner. For this reason we give 1t some
further attention.
Mr. Wells announces at the outset of his Ia
test Report that the results of his extended ex-
animation of " the present condition OF the
"capital and industry of the country are to
" considerable degree contradictory and para
" doxicaln The first taste which he gives MS OF
the contradictory is set out in bodest relief on
his Sth and 9th pages, and the paradoxcal fol-
lows on page TO- lie picks up the statement
currently credited both in Congress and out
"of Congress, that the production of pig iron
"was remarkably stimulated under the tariff
of 1s42-rising from 100000 tuns in 1S42 to
100000 tuns in 1S4S-and that under the tariff
" of 1916 the same industry was remarkably
" depressed. and then proceeds with avery cum
ming array of garbled statistics to show that
" the facts are entirely contrary to what
"may he regarded as the popular belief quoting
no less authority for his array of the contra
"dictory" data than the American Iron and Steel
Association. We have been favored with an
examination of the statement furnished Mr..
Wells by the Secretary of the Association, III
which we notice that the make Of pig iron is
gwen for the consecutive years from 1854 to
1867 inclusive, and learn from that officer that
the Association does not vOuch for the prOduc
ton in any previous year. The Secretary gave
Mr.. Wells the respective products of 20 differ
ent years-six of them without the indorse-
ment of the Association. OF this total of 20
several years production Mr. Wells uses six in
the following fashion:
Production Of pig iron in $780, 10000 tuns IN lstO 3i
900 tuns increase In 10 years 10 per cent Production
duction 1880 $4,000 increase in 10 GO per cent
Production I'm 1885, 600 increase In years, 80 per cent
Production IN 1860. 93oOG Increase In lOyears o. per
cent.
But it was the remarkable increase of produc
ton between the years 1912 and 1S4s which Mr..
Wells undertook to contradict, and he has
not given the make in either of these years
The reason for choosing these years is that
they bound the period in which the tariff of
1912 was in operation. 1t went into operation
OH the both of August of that year, and was
mpplanted by that of 1916 on the LIST of De-
cember, 1916. Now, Mr. Bannan, one of the best
authorities on the subject, in his work on Coal,
Iron, and Oil, page 697, gives the make of pig
iron in 1912 at $4,000 tuns, and repro
duces Secretary X. j. Walker for not
less than 10000 tuns in 1916. This is
strictly and exactly the period by which
the tariff of 1919 should be tried. 1t
is true that furnaces cannot be built in q
year; and if we were to take for the proper
dates the years 1913 and 1s47, we should be
more just to the operation of the tariff in ques
ton, for while the results of any system of
duties upon iron are not shown for at least q
year or year and a half after the
act takes effect, so the effect fingers for some
months after its operation is changed. We
have not the figures on any reliable authority
for either 1843 or 1877; but, taking 1912 as a
point of departure, we may very allowably
add the additional $1,000 tuns to the report for
the probable product of 18l7, and so reach the
very figures which Mr. Wells intended to con-
tradict. Here, then, we have an increase under
the tariff of 1912 in four years of 255 per cent,
for we are now using the figures which we find
as we have given them above; and, starting
again from 1916, which means at the beginning
of the year 1847, one month after the change
was made, we find by the census of 1850 only
564, 755 tuns for that year-four years with q
reduction of the product Of 2OO,245, and after
five years more in 1855, the product is given at
754,17s, nearly II 900 tuns less than in 1885,
after O nine years run of the tariff Of 1916. In
1858, after q year and half of the tariff of
1857, the product had fallen to 705,O9i tuns-a
reduction upon the last year Of the tariff of
1842 of $4,000 tuns. The year 1860, indeed,
brought up the yield to 918,770 tuns Here
then, at the most distant points, properly OPP
posed to each other-the IA years from 1916
TO 1S60-we have total increase OF 19t per
cent in the last year Of the period, and every
other year except two below the figures of the
first of the period. In the face of these
facts, what becomes Of Mr.. Wels's 81, 80, 40
and 80 per cents, so speciously paraded in his
What becomes of his statement in
the text of his 9th page, that since 1910 the
increase of the production has been at the
average of about per cent per annumY"
The increase under the tariff of 1916 for ten
years was less than nothing, aud If we credit
it with the astyear's product and spread this
over the whole period for the sake of an aver
age that might help to hide the actual depres-
sion OF this industry, we should have growth
ut the rate OF one and One-fOurth per cent per