Huntsville gazette., 1884-07-12
Combinations in Stoves, Matches and
Paper.

There has been, since 1872, national
combination of the manufacturers Of the
stoves into which the combination coal
must be put; and its effect, the founder
said, in his speech at the annual ban
quet in Cleveland, last February, had
been to change the balance from the
wrong to the right side of the ledger
Until lately, at least, combination
matches lighted the fire of combination
coal in these combination stoves, and it
is combination oil which the cook, con-
trary to orders, puts on the fires to make
them burn faster. The combinati of
match manufacturers was perfected by
the experience of sixteen years of
fusions, till lately it shared with the coal
combination the pleasure of advancing
the price of fire by proclamation on the
approach OF winter. 1t is now at war
with the new companies which have
gone into the manufacture since the re-
peal of the internal revenue tax. These
1t is attempting to conquer by under
selling them, tactics which have hitherto
never failed. The Government of the
United States, before which all men are
equal helped this combination to kill
Oft its competitors, shielding it from for
eign competition by tax of thirty-five
per cent. on the importation of matches
from abroad, and shielding it from do
mestlc competition by administering the
internal revenue tax so as to make its
small competitors pay ten per cent
more tax. This drove them into bank
ruptcy, or combination with the ring,
at the rate of one or two every month.
The railroads, like the Government,
helped to transfer this business from the
many TO the few by carrying the COM
binatlon's matches at lower rates than
were given to its little competitors.
When the housemaid strikes a combina-
ton match on the wall paper she leaves
mark on an article the manufacture,
sale, and price of which are rigidlv reg
ulated by the American Wall Paper
Manufacturers Association A recent
writer has described this oath-bound
combination which has established
wall paper monarchy in
the United States When the
cook takes the paper from off the ex-
press package, the hardware, the dry
goods, the groceries, the candy, the
ham, which have been sent home, she
Is stlll handling an article the price of
which is fixed by private enactments.
The Western Wrapping-paper Associa-
ton, ever since 1880, has, with more or
less success, been struggling to keep
down the deluge of too much wrapping
paper. and to fix the prices of all kinds,
from the paper under the carpet to that
which is used in roofing 1t recently
failed, but was at once reorganized on
tirmer footing than before, and its mills
are now allowed to turn out but one
half as much as they could produce.
Besides this, the wood-pulp and straw
paper industries have been amalgam-
ated. The American Paper Associa-
ton aims to control the prices and pro-
duction of paper for newspapers and
books, and for writing: The dealers in
old rags and old paper formed an asso-
citation in Cleveland three years ago to
deal with the '.old-rag'' problem of
how to cut down the enormous profits
the women of our country are making
out OF the contents of their rag-bags.
Ia January. 1883, the trade met again
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