The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1888-07-19
PRICES UNDER A PROTE CTIVE
TARIFF

The attorneys for free trade, who seek
to create prejudice against the policy of
Protection by charging that it enhances
the cost to consumers, can best be met
by comparison of prices of few arti-
cles in common use.
In 1860 salt, then on the free list, sold
to consumers at an average price of So
per barrel. The tariff on salt in barrels
is now twelve cents per hundred pounds,
Tor say 331s cents per barrel), and the
average price is not more than half that
of 1860 AS salt has been made the SUBJ
ject of special attack, it may be well to
selling price goes to the manufacturer,
against whom it is sought to create pre-
JUDGE. In 1887, at the works in Michi-
gan, salt sold for 60 cents per barrel
and of this sum 20 cents was paid to the
cooper for making the barrel. All be-
tween this price and that paid by consum-
ers went for transportation and profits
of middlemen.
The manufacture of plate glass was es-
tablished in 1866, when the foreign-made
article was sold for $3.50 per square
foot. The tariff on similar quality of
glass is now fifty cents per foot, and the
price has steadily lowered until it is now
seventy-6ve cents per square foot.
Pig iron, in 1860, sold for $22.75 per
ton. With tariff of $6.72 per ton. It
now sells for $1S.
Steel rails were first made here in 1867,
when the price was $166 per ton. The
tariff has been as high as sos per ton,
and is now SIT. Steel rails are now
quoted at $31, and have sometimes been
lower.
A favorite plea of free traders is that
with wool and woolens on the free list,
1.-THE poor mans blanket" would be sold
for one-half its present price-when the
fact is prices for blankets of equal quail
ty are about the same in the United
States and England. Here is the proof:
Last year the Secretary of War invited
bids for supplying army blankets of four
pounds weight, and allowed foreigners
to compete on the same terms as Ameri-
can manufactures, that is, without pay
ing the tariff. The lowest British bid
was only thirty cents per blanket less
than that of an American. The tariff, If
it had been charged, would be about
$3.50. Our free trade Cabinet officer
gave the contract to the foreigner who
pays no taxes and buys nothing in this
country, instead of favoring the Ameri-
can, who supplies work to hundreds of
people and otherwise adds to the wealth
of our country, and American soldiers
are to sleep under British blankets, be-
cause they can be made in England for
thirty cents less than in this country.
And here is some testimony from the
other side: Matthew Arnold, the eminent
English scholar, statesman and free trade
advocate, recently decea sed, last year
made a tour to this country, and after
wards gave his conclusions in the Nine
teenth Century Magazine, april, 1881
In this paper the writer admits that con-
ditions in the Uuited States are favora-
BILE to that immense class of people"
whose incomes are less than 81, 500
year, while in England the advantage lis
greatly in favor Of those with incomes
above that sum-" Of wages he says,
1.-THE humber kind of work is better paid
in America than with us, the higher kind
worse. Luxuries, are as have said, very
dear-above all European luxuries; but a
working-man's clothing is nearly as
cheap as in England, and plain food is
on the whole cheaper"