Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1888-09-15
THE TRUSTS THAT BLAINE DE-
TENDS


The people of the country are fast be-
coming aware of the real character Of the
trusts which have lately sprung into ex-
isteuce. 1t is perceived that they are
combinations to take from the consumers
all the advantages Of competition in busi-
ness, organized monopolies to force prices
higher than they would 20 in q natural
condition of business, the gamers being
she sellers the losers being the buyers.
Many w~orkingmen all oyer the country
have s~orrowfully discovered, also, that one
of their uses and effects is to limit the OPP
portunities of employment. The sugar re-
inery in Portland, Me-, for example, no
longer furnishes work to the men former
ly employed in it. 1t has CEASED doing
business. Those who worked there have
been driven to seek other occupations,
But the proprietors do not sui
fer. Oh, no! Quite the contrary.
Without doing 8 stroke of work, and
while their machinery was rusting in idle
ness, they received the profits OF
business. Indeed the reason and motive
of a trust is 10 extort from the people a
price for what they use that will afford a
profit on more capital than is needful to
produce the required quantity o any COM
commodity.
OF all trusts, the unreasonable high
tariff, by which the people Of the country
are now oppressed, is the greatest. In the
first place ii was made By a lobby of man
ufsctursrs for the purpose Of dspriving con.
sumers of all goods on which q duty
is laid for the advantage of fair
home competition in prices. The
reason of q protective tariff is to
eauslize conditions between the manufsc
turers of this and other countries. Our high
tariff is not q protectire tsrlff, for a protGct-
i've tariff is not intended to kill of
competition, but only to secure fairness
of competition with foreign countries.
The design is to impose such q tax, and
only such a tax, as would Offset the higher
price of production in this country while
our people are learning or establishing
the business. Down to the time of the war
there was no party, and hardly a statesman
or an economist, to advocate q permanent
ly exclusive tariff according to the notions
of the new school. The taxation of food
products and of the raw materials to be
manufactured would have been esteemed a
gross oppression by the older advocates OF
the American system"
This policy il radically different from
the one now prevailing, and still more
different from the one advocated by the
BLAINEs, REEDS and KELLY's of the Re-
publican party. As u result Of the war
tariff policy, the business In numerous
lines Of manufacturing has developed to
such a degree that ten or eight, in some
cases perhaps ak, months work produces
all the people want, or all they can afford
to buy at ruling prices for a year. There
fore, workmen do not have steady en-
ployment. The nominally high daily or
weekly wages are a dslusion, because there
Is so much idle time. WHAT remedy for
sdch a state of things does the
new school of protectionists PROPOSE
A still higher tariff. WHAT is
the purpose? Not to got new markets for
their surplus products for clearly it will
have no such effect but to enable the
manufacturers to charge higher prices for
what they produce, and 80 to make while
operating their factories but part of the
time q proit equivalent to a years bust
ness at reasonable prices. The working
men will get no advantage by such a pol
icy. They will have less work, rather
than more, and whatever they buy will be
desrer.
Thus it appears that the high tariff is
the great trust, and the father of private
trusts. 1t is a scheme for forcing the con-
sumers to pay to the producers an unearn-
ed profit on capital invested in idle facto-
ries-a doing by express warrant and per-
mission of law, ON n large scale, precisely
what the private trusts, sO-called, are at
tempting to do for those interested in
them.