The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1888-07-23
THE TARIFF AND TRUSTS.
How tho Homo Market Club OF Illinois Dis
cusses Thorn.

How tho Homo Market Club OF Illinois Dis
ousses Thorn.
Htrc York Pres.
The Home Market Club OF Illinois will
do the Press tariff talk to-day on the sub.
iect Of the tariff and trusts, as follows;
"The men who have assumed the task
IA tearing down tho barriers by which
our markets are defended and better re-
turns for labor insured, seem determined
TO make the policy OF protection odious
BY falsely charging it with responsibility
for oyery unpopular condition which the
business OF the country experiences.
"Among the moro recently discovered
owls Of protective policy to which these
free trade advoCases point is the alleged
fostering OF trusts But here, as else
where, facts are against them, as will be
seen by glance at history past and
present.
"'Trusts,' or pools or combinations
by whatever name, are far from being
modern contrivances for controlling
prices, and are by no means confined to
the United States. In fact, tho trust
of to-day is OF English origin; and I'M
fortunately for the Free Trade advocate's
purpose, did not come into prominence
in England until 1S4S-two years after
the adoption by that nation Of her ex.
listing FREQ Trade policy. This combin:
alton was in the tin mining district OF
Cornwall and DevOnshire, and was in-
tended to affect the price OF a metal on
which there was no tariff.
Coming down to the present, the
gr,2t copper trust which recently sue
ceedcd IL carrying up prices to an un-
precedented figure, originatedin France,
where there are no copper mines to pro:
tect. England to-day has coal oil
trust, though no coal oil wells, and no
tariff on coal oil. Canada, like ourselves,
has q sugar trust, while allowing sugar
10 enter her ports FREQ OF duty. Here in
the United States our most. formidable
trust is tho Standard. Oil Company,
with coal oil on the free list. Ut may
be well To remember that the present
Secretary Of the Navy is n member Of
this Standard Oil Combination.) Then,
again, we have the, coffee trust, which
has succeeded in materially increasing
the price Of coffee within the past year
and half, while every one who cares to
inuuire knows that coffee has been on
the free list since 1873.
ain the face OF facts like these, 1t is
daily charged that trusts inherited from
England and hourisbing as never before
under the present pro-British admins
tration, are an outgrowth Of the Ameri-
can protective policy. The same free
trade advocates, with unabashed incon-
sistency, charge against protective tariff
that it materially increased the prices OF
protected products. This, il true, would
operate to render combinations all the
more difficult, by requiring increased
capital for holding and arbitrarily forcing
M the prices OF commodities. Tho real
truth is that all these commercial com.
binations, like those between railroad
managers, are very little, II at all, affect
cd by customs laws; and the evils with
which they threaten the country are to
be ayerted by national and State legisla-
ton, rendering all combinations more
difficult, and keeping every business
avenue open to untrammeled competi-
ton. This appeal Of free trade advo-
Gates to the general prejudice against
trusts but betrays tho absence OF facts
and arguments in support Of the unpa-
triotic policy they have espoused, and
will deceive none but the minimizing