The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-05-09
TARIFF ABSURDITIES.

One of the many illustrations Of the ruin
sus policy of protection was lately brough
prominently into notice by the refusal o
Ssading British manufacturers to exhibit thei
wares at the coming Philadelphia Centennia
exhibition, on the ground that the presen
high duties amount in most cases to prohi
bition of their manufactured products on the
American market, and that it is therefore
adding insult to injury to invite them tc
exhibit articles of British manufacture in q
country where they are shut out from compe.
Ntion by extravagantly high revenue barriers.
Commenting upon this, the Chicago Tribune,
whose political economy is far ahead of its
purely partisan notions, gathers some in
gtruetive statistics in reference to particular
branch of manufacturing industry-the car
yet making business-from which it appears
Shat eight-tenths of the American people are
compelled to pay two or three prices for their
carpets, in order to enrich few hundred per-
SONS who are engaged in that manufacture in
tho North. The Tribune appropriately re.
marks that the American people suffer vastly
more through this insane policy than the
sDreign producers themselves.
The Chinese followed that policy for ages,
with what results every one knows, and Just
rs they dropped it the American Congress
commenced legislating on the same obsolete
system a system which, as the Tribune truly
nays has cost the people of the United States
several hundreds of millions of dollars annu-
ally over and above the revenue received by the
government to build up the exclusive policy. |
l6svsrting to the particular subject above al |
inded to, We find that during the year 1894
ahere were imported into the United States |
about :, 100000 of yards of Brussels, Amin. |
zssr, and other foreign carpets, which paid |
duty at the rate Of from As to nearly 80 per
rent in gold, yielding above 50, OOO, 900 to the
national treasury.
Bnt this tax, says the Tribune, was not
Esvied to produce revenue it was to exclude
these carpets, and force the people to pur-
chase the inferior article produced in this
sonntry. English Brussels tapestry, which
I OF the grade most extensively used in this
eonntry, costs 80 cents yard; the tax is SO
cents yard, making 81 43; premium on
gold, Is cents; importers profit, ETC., SO {
cents, making an aggregate of over 50 per
yard at wholesale price. The corresponding !
article produced in this country would of
pourse be sold for much less but this tax
Allowed margin of over q dollar a yard,
"a which margin the home manufacturers
worked up as high as they could.
The result was, that under cover of this '
prohibitory tax, the American manufacturers a
collected from so to 80 cents yard more 8
han they would have had to sell them for had =
here been no such tax. As the importation
II English carpets is but trihing compared Z
With the sale Of American carpets, the pur- !
,hasers Of the many millions Of yards Of the d
inter were taxed thus SO to 80 cents a yard, d
which tax did not 60 to the government, but r.
n the pockets Of the favored home manufac- =
nrer But now mark the result on the car I,
'et makers themselves. We quote from the tt
Ame journal in which we find the above g
vets and figures: .
The immense bounty offered by the law to =,
arpet-makers naturally led them to over-pro- M
nnted and after the first sales the patterns be- a
anne old and unstable and the stock depre- d
lated. To get rid Of this stock they had to OF
lose their mills, discharge their opera. Of
yes and sell their carpets for what
hoy could get, sometimes at loss. In the er
'eantime, the English carpets, with the new o.
stterns take possession of the market and are -
ad despite the enormous tax which was intended ~
keep them out. The consumers, however. 81
we to pay the enormous tax to support the man. at
acturers OF American carpets who are periodi- Sit
ny bankrupt, and unable to pay living wages as
the labor they employ. tn