Morning journal and courier., 1888-08-10
DEMOCRATIC TARIFF REFORM

The more the work of the Democrats in "tarif reform' is examined the more ridic. ulous and inconsistent it appears. The New York Press has picked out some of the dis crspancies in the Mills bill and sets them forth in way that deserves attention. The bill does not make its reductions evenly, SO that all would share the retrenchment of protection alike; and in making reductions haphazard it nearly always hits hardest the finished product.
 Sugar, whose price has been advanced by I a trust and which pays $5S. .016, ,6s6, every penny cut of the consumers pocket, is
 reduced fifth, so that the retail price, which
 moves by cents and not fractions, will not ! be cheapened. Wool, which pays $5, ,as9, ,s16 on one-fourth of our consumption, and whose duty lowers prices by stimulating the pro- duct, 80 that the consumer does not pay all the tax, is deprived of all protection and made free altogether. Other discrepancies noted by the Press are as follows: Needles are made free, iron ore is left un- der old duty.
 Tin plate is made free, the sheet iron out of which tin plate must be made and all that lies behind is left with duty of 35 to 70 per cent.
 Wood screws, made in a Democratic dis trict in Connecticut, unchanged; cut tacks and springs, made in New Jersey and else- where, reduced in duty one-half. Cotton ties, free; the hoop iron of which cotton ties are made, 35 per cent. Structural iron, which requires special ma chinery and special skill to roll it, six-tenths of cent pound; iron and steel beams which do not, seven-tents of a cent 8 pound. Steel flat, advanced by longitudinal ribs, ready to make fencing, four-tenths of cent a pound, say 30 per cent. the same flat at an earlier stage, 45 per cent.
 Burlaps, under sixty inches in width, free; over sixty inches, 35 per cent.-both made in the United States-one deprived, the other given protection.
 jute bags for grain, free: iute bags for po- tatoes, three-eights of 6 cent pound. Raistns, grown in California; cut down one- l third; peanuts, grown in southern States, cut down one-fourth; oranges, grown in Florida, close State, untouched. Freestone, granite and sandstone, un- dressed. northern building stone, free; mar ble, undressed, Tennessee product, forty cents per cubic foot.
 China, clay and kaoiin, dug in Virginia and other southern States, g per ton; the China made out of it in New Jersey plain, reduced from 55 to 40 per cent; decorated, ! 60 to 90 per cent. Pig iron, made, we are glad to say, in twelve southern States, reduced from s6.72 | per ton to $R, steel pens made in Camnen, N. ! J., and elsewhere, reduced from twelve cents per gross to S5 per gross, equal to two cents ! per gross.
 And it may be added that the Mills bill as l passed by the House is for free trade in pro- ducts that pay over ssO0, ,O0O. 900 annually | into the pockets of American farmers and l workingmen, and for tariff for revenue
 only in products that represent five times
 that amount in wages and profits to the same
 farmers and workingmsn. These wages and
 profits would be transferred to English man.
 ufacturers and workingmen if the Demos
 | cratic party had it's way