Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-02-16
The Tariff.
BY HENRY wATTERsoN.

prices, and see how the account stands
between the manufacturer and the con-
sumer. 1t is assuredly true that in the
| last twenty-five years there has been q
decline in prices. There have beer
causes operating universally which
| have lowered to remarkable extent
the price Utmost manufactured articles
In this multiplication of the comforts
of life America has shared to some ex-
tent, but to a much less extent than
she would have shared had her pro-
ductions not been restricted by the
| "protective system,n The products OF
| America to-day than prior to 1860; yet
| this decline cannot be traced TO local
causes, for the decline is general. Ger
tainly the United States tariff has not
lowered the price of English products.
That the American products are not as
low as those of England is evident from
q comparison Of the export trade of
England and that of this country. In
the metals England exported $237 500, :
| 600 i'm 1850, against $14, 900 of Amer
lean exports. In textiles England ex-
ported in 1850 1854 500 900, against
S10,216,000 exported by the United
States. In 1850 we exported raw cot
ton to all countries to the value of $239, :
OO0, 900; but during the same year Great
Britain, besides supplying her own
domestic consumption from the raw
cotton she bought of us, exported man
ufactured cotton to the value of $685.
600 900. England can undersell US only
because the tariff has not reduced the
prices in this country to the level of
prices in England.
Tn 1880 our manufacturers sent to
Central and South America $3, 1896, 400
worth of manufacture d cotton goods;
but the English sent to the same terri
tory-a territory contiguous to us, and
under normal conditions exclusively
ours-S51 ,235 600, or, to state 1t differ
emily, Great Britain sells thirteen dol
lars' worth of cotton goOds. to these
American states south of us, to one dol
lars worth sent by our own manufac-
turers. Manlfestly England controls
this trade because she furnishes the
goods cheaper than does the manufac-
turer in the United States.
Perhaps the most striking fact of re-
cent industrial history is the improve
ment in the manufacture of steel rails,
by which the price in England has fall
len from $6l so in 1868 to SIS in 1856.
In the same time the price in America,
which in 1868 was S158 in deprecated
currency, declined to S26 in 1856, and
in the past twelve months has advanc-
ed to $44.
1t is customary for the protectlonist
to point to this steel-rail industry as
convincing proof of the value of the
tariff in decreasing prices, but as the
price has fallen in England far below
the American level, the cause cannot
be local. It must be general; it must
be due to an influence that works as
effectively elsewhere as here. This i'm
fluence is the inventive genius of the
age.
This steel-rail tax is perpetual bur-
den. The lowest quotation on British
rails in 1856 was $l8.15; freight by
steamer to New Orleans $1.25; dock
age. ETC., 81; duty, SIT; total, $37.40,
allowing nothing for commission.
When the American price advanced to
S3S, importations increased. AS we
have seen, there has been an advance
in the American price within the last
twelve mopts of SIT ton. Should q
repeal of the tariff result in decline of
SIT, the price would not be less than 1t
was at one time in 1886; yet the decline
was not disastrous. whilst the su0se-
que mt advance was costly. In the year
1856 the product of the American Steel
There are in the United States about
14O, 900 miles of railroad, and this year
the new roads will reach to 10000
miles. possibly 10000. Ninety tons of
steel rails are required for every mile
of road where steel is used. 1t Is safe
to say that the steel rails cost the COM
panies SIS more, year in and year out, |
because of the tariff, or $3.50 for every |
m lie of road built. Multiplying this by |
10 900, the number of miles to be built |
in 1887. for he new roads alone the tax |
is Sl3, 100000.
These rails last only ten years. The |
entire railroad system of the United |
States has to be renewed every ten |
years, or at the rate at present of 14,-
600 miles year; the additional cost of
this, al $3.50 per mile, or for tie $4,000 |
miles, is SIS, 900, ,000. In other words. |
the tariff will soon impose upon the
builders of new roads, and on those |
who renew the old ones as they wear |
out, a tax of $50. 400, 900 in excess of
what the cost would be were the Amer |
ican railroads permitted to purchase
rails where they could buy them cheap. |
est. A part of this tax is capitalized,
and goes into the cost of the roads; the
increases the operating ex-
penses to that extent.
A more striking example than this |
of the real character of the protective |
system may not be found, and thought |
TO serve both as a revelation and a |
warning. All these vast profits, forced |
By law out of the pockets of the whole |
people, have gone into few hands, |
and have, in few years, built up enor-
nous private wealth at the public ex-
pense. They were, and they continue
to he, an assessment upon every mile |
of travel made and every pound ofl
freight carried, for the benefi, of a spec
tally favored and a very small class. |
Yet, though larger in degree, they are
not different in kind from countless |
Other impositions of the tariff to which |
the country is indebted for the startling |
of fortune witnessed by the |
present generation of fAmericans. The |
old English statute that, under rigid |
penalties, required the dead to be bur-
led in woollens, for the purpose of en-
the manufacture of tex tile |
fabrics, was scarcely more grotesque |
than are some Of the jobs which have
crept into our tariff, which, If they
were not SO unjust and audacious, would |
be aughable.
For example, after the great Chicago
fire, when Congress in an impulse OF
generosity had remitted from taxation |
for one year all building material dee
signed for the reconstruction OF the
city, it was found that an item
lumber from the proposed
exemption had mysteriously imbedded
itself in the act. Again, when the bill
by the Tariff Com mission had
been thrown out of Congress, and the
Hc,,ea f,f popr.santafir res had DasSed