New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-04-25

| price, when behold the price fell to three
dollars! Whose theory did this establish :
According to the theory of free trade, here
was result perfectly mysterious and unac.
countabie. On the principles of protection
the thing was perfectly plain. As soon as
| the duty imposed secured a market to The
American manufacturers of glass, they went
to work with all their force, each seeking his
own profit and all free to make and sell it as
they could, when the astonishing power OF
competition soon effected this great reduction
in price.
In 1874 the duty on English common bar
iron was twenty-five dollars per ton or sixty.
eight per cent, and its price was then SCI. SO
per ton. The price, less the duty, would
leave s36.63 as the cost of producing ton
OF IRON. In 1876 the duty was lowered to
thirty per cent, and in 1857 to twenty-fnur
per cent. According to the free trade theory
the result of this reduction of the tariff should
have been to reduce the price of iron Just to
the extent of the decrease in duty. But the
fact is quite different, as the following COM
parison will prove /: in 1874, as we have seen,
the duty on English bar iron was twenty
live dollars ton, and the prime cost was
s36.S3. In 1876 the duty was reduced to
thirty per cent, or more than one-half, which
was equal to duty of $1O.42 per ton, instead
oftwenty-five dollars. The price ofiron ought,
therefore, to have gone down to s26.41 OF to
s36.S3, less the 40 duty, if the free traders
are right in their theories. But instead of
tins the cost OF production actually increased
to S54.oO per ton, an advance of S1791 per
ton.
The article of lead furnishes another strik-
ing instance of the absolute fallacy of the
free trade doctrine. The duty upon lead in
1913, under the tariff of 1912, was three dol
lars per one hundred pounds, and the price
in the New York market during that year
was S3.374 per one hundred pounds. If gen
tlemen are right, the price of lead should
have been only thirty-seven and half cents
per one hundred pounds, less than four mills
per pound. But when this duty of three
dollars was removed and revenue duty of
twenty per cent, or seven and half cents
per one hundred pounds, placed on it, the
price, SO Tar fromgOing pOwn to thirty-sevsn
and half cents with this duty of seven anil
nall cents added, absolutely rose between
1917 and 1857, to an average of $5.67 per
one hundred pounds. In other words, when
the duty was reduced to one-fOrtieth of the
former rate, the price nearly doubled.
will give another instance of a more re-
cent date, and of still more striking char
acter 1t is the history of three years eXpe-
rlence in the manufacture of steel railroad
bars. In 1864 the first steel rails were i'm
ported into the United States. They were
sold to our railroad companies that year for
price beginning with sl64 per ton, and
gradually decreasing to sl35. The manufac-
ture of steel rails was begun in the United
States in 1867. The foreign rails at once
went to Sis and then to $l1O per ton. In
April, 1870, the price was reduced to $72 per
ton, decrease and saving to railroad COM
panles of more than seventy-tye dollars per
ton, the result of protection to American
steel manufacturers, and the competition it
gave them the means of making with the
English manufacturers.
AS further proof in support of my position,
l present the following table furnished to
Hon. David A. Wells by A. L. Stewart, of
New York, both free traders, showing the
prices of certain articles under the low tariff
OF 1860 and the tariff of 1869. 1t was made,
it will be seen, for the year 1869, but all the
articles named are as cheap as they were
then, and some of them cheaper:
1860. 1869.
Cadet cloths,