The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1888-07-12
,AUK CENTRE HERALD,
THURSDAY, July ~, 1883.
THE TARIFF AND TRUSTS"

The men who have assumed the task
of tearing down the barriers by which
our markets are defended, and better re.
turns for labor insured, seem to make
the policy of protection odious by falsely
charging it with responsibility for every
unpopular condition which the business
of the country experiences.
Among the more recently discovered
evils of a protective policy to which these
free trade advocates point is the alleged
fostering of trusts" But here, as else
where, facts are against them, as will be
seen at glance at history past and
present.
TRUSTS" or "pools," or combinations
by whatever name, are far from being
modern contrivences for controlling
prices, and are by no means confined to
the United States. In fact the trusts"
OF to-day is of English origin; and unfor-
tunately for the free trade advocates
purpose, did not come into prominence
in England until 1S4s-two years after
the adoption by that nation of her ex-
listing free trade policy. This combina-
ton 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 great
copper trust, which recently succeeded
in carrying up prices to an unprecedent-
ed figure, originated in, France. where
there are no copper Zines to protect.
England to-day has a coal oil trust.
though no oil wells, and no tariff on
coal oil. Canada, like ourselves, has
sugar trust while allowing sugar to en-
ter her ports free of duty. Here in the
United States our most formidable
trust is the Standard Oil Company,
with coal oil or. the free list. Ut may be
well 70 rene mber that the present secre-
eary OF the navy is a member of this
lard Oil combination.) Then,
again, we have the coffee trust" which
has succeeded in materially increasing
the price of coffee within the past year
and a half, while every one who cares to
enquire knows that coffee has been on
the free list since 1878.
charged that "trusts"-inherited from
England, and fourishing as never before
under the present pro-British admins
tration-are an outgrowth of the Ameri-
can protective policy. The same free
trade advocation, with unabashed in
consistency, charge against a protective
tariff that it materially increases the
prices of protected products. This, if
true, would operate to render combina-
tions all the more difficult, by requiring
increased capital for holding and arbi-
trary forcing up the prices of commodi-
ties. The real truth is that all these COM
mercial combinations, like those between
railroad managers, are very little, if at
all, affected by custom laws; and the
evils with which they threaten the coun-
try are to be averted by national and
state legislation, rendering all combina-
lions more difficult, and keeping every
business avenue open to untrammelle 4
competition. This appeal of free trade
advocates to the general prejudice
against trusts but betrays the absence
of facts and arguments i'll support of the
unpatriotic policy they have espoused
and will deceive none but the rInthinkiue