Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-09-06
FIRST FRUITS OF THEMILLS BILL

Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette.
There is great excitement throughout
the South over the operations of the So
called jute- -bagging trust. Jute cloth,
such as is used to cover cotton bales,
sold last year for q cents a yard, and is
now 12I cents per yard, with prospect
Of an advance to II or al cents. The
cotton planters are naturally furious, as
the increase of price is estimated as
amounting to a charge of S3,000,000 ON
the cotton crop, the handling of which
has just begun.
The case presents an interesting study
on the workings of the tariff. For sew
eral years past there has been little or
no money in the manufacture of jute
bagging. and when the Mills bill re-
duced the duty from II cents a pound
to 3 of a cent. the manufacturers be-
came alarmed. The result was that fif-
teen or sixteen mills shut down altogeth-
er until the tariff issue should be settled.
Other mills were put on short time so
as not to be caught with stocks on hand
should the Mills bill become law. The
result was that production was greatly
reduced, presenting an excellent OppOr-
tunity for forming a corner. Two strong
concerns. one in st. Louis and one in
New York, secured control of all the
stock in the country. While carrying
out their plans they kept quoting low
prices and depressing the market, but
now that the cotton season has open
ed and demand has sprung up the corn
er has been developed and prices have
been on the jump ever since. 1t will be
seen that there is no trust in the case,
but simply a corner made possible by
the proStration of manufacture caused
by the Mills bill
To break the corner Senator Reagan
introduced bill to abolish the duty on
jute bagging so as to stimulate imports.
This, however, would not get the plant
erS out of the hole into which Mr. Mills
has dumped them. The advance of
price is more tnan the amount of the
duty, but foreign mills cannot produce
the materials in time to meet this de-
mand. 4 circular issued by a New
York importing house describes the sit
uation as follows:
We have been successful in making
contracts with mills in Dundee for linn
tied quantity of 334 pound bagging, but
so far we have been able to get but little,
which will not arrive here before the end
of September, and the chance of getting
more is but slight for the reason that the
Scotch mills have not the looms adapted
for making the coarse cloth we need for
covering cotton; besides they are under
large contracts for making other kinds
of bailingStuffS, which will keep them
them fully occupied until October, when
it will be too late for them to help us any.
What we have already contracted for will
go Immediately into consumption, so it
will not affect the market here for the
regular bagging.
The effect of Senator Reagan's bill
would simply be to destroy the Ameri-
can manufacture, and thus make the
situation which has produced the pres
ent corner a permanent feature of the
market. The cotton planters would
then be altogether in the hands of the
foreign mills and would have to pay
whatever prices the British jute trust
should see proper to fix. 1t is safe to
predict that the average price would be
above what domestic competition re-
duced it to before the Mills bill did its
deadly work. Mr.. Mills tariff tinkering
will cost the cotton planters just about
100000 this season, with the prospect
of more in the future if events this fall
do not stay his devastating hand.