Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-01-31

mills eat or drink more or oftener than
employees working at non.protected pur-
suits.
3,-The farmers are permitted "to sell
here" all the products they can find a
home market for; but they happen to
raise crops, including cotton, to the an
nual amount of 500 to 600 millions, for
which there is no American demand or
consumption, and which is compelled to
seek foreign markets or rot in the field
ungarnered. The prices obtained for
this vast surplus, less the cost of trans
portation to foreign ports and middle-
mems commissions, determine the market
price the farmers get for the whole crop.
whether consumed in this country or
abroad. These facts are so well known
to every person who has wit enough to
come in out of the rain that ii is super
tluous to restate them here.
At induces enterprising men Ut cap
ital to combine to prevent competition by
forming trust monopOlies and forcing up
the prices of their goods to the utmost
point their high protection will permit,
and thereby exacting eXtOrtionate rates
from the consuming public And this is
just what is taking place around the
"highly.protected" horizon at this time.
|
branch of "highly protected" business,
and nothing short of reducing war duties
to a peace basis will protect the public
against their greed and rapacity. The
effect of these artificially "dear" trust
goods is to decrease consumption and
thereby reducing employment, cutting
down wages, and causing strikes and |
| labor rows and riots.
| Hama nnn
up in the face of trust combines; it is ex
actly what they organized to prevent.
No competition for them is their motto.
Their purpose is to gobble the entire
bounty the wal tariff enables them to ex>
| act. Seer
6-No, it doesn't happen to work that
way, but right into combinations OF the
capitalists of each interest to prevent
competition and the lowering OF prices.
This trust-monopoly system is spreading
like an epidemic, and the consuming
public is being shamefuIy robbed. Look
at the price now charged for farmers
plOw steel-10 cents pound. Not long
ago 1t was less than five. These high
prices invariably cripple and destroy new
demand for labor because the consuming
public cannot purchase 80 many of the
monopoly goods.
Tt was never necessary to have the
existing excessive duties on plate glass;
and even if they were justltiable for few
years to start the Infant industries"
they are no longer needed, unless it be to
enable plate glass manufacturers to die
worth six to ten millions. tilched out of
| the consumer
| S.-The successful establishment of
plate glass works in this country is due to
no one thing, but to several; such as tind~
ing the right kind of sand importing
skillful European cut glass makers, and in
part to high duties; but the latter have
continued too long and should he mod
Grated. The reduction in the price of
plate glass is due to greatly improved
| methods of making it. The credit |
belongs to labor saving devices In Eu-
rope and this country, and certainly
not to the 100 to $50 per cent bounty tax |
on American consumers. High taritfites |
always slur over and try TO conceal the |
wonderful works the inventors have done |
in cheapenlng and perfecting the process
SEES OF manufacture during the last thirty |
| years, and Urazenly give to high tariff |
taxes on the public the credit that is |
wholly due to inventive brains.
| O. No. 1t has for the last twenty-One |
years operated just the other way The |
high raw wool duties levied in 1867 broke |
down the great Boston wool market Il |
| cents within year or two, and knocked |
down the price one-half before their evil |
effects ceased. The reduction of that |
| high wool tax two or three cents pound |
| by the republican revision of the tariff in |
1888 operated to raise the price of Amer |
lean wool six or seven cents, and it also |
cheapened wooden clothes. The reason of |
all has been explained in the Tribune |
within fortnight
| 10.-It doesn't seem to. They have |
had twentyAone years in which to try it, |
and have done nothing. There would be |
no profit in raising such sheep east of the
plains. Sheep raising for wool has
ceased to be profitable east of the Mis-
souri, river. Half cent a day will not |
keep and feed sheep for year, and that |
is even more than their fleeces fetch
except on the sheep grazing lands of the |
| far southwest, where there is no winter |
and no manufacturing is required.
| 11.-No, the high tariff of 1867 so was
imposed off the prevalent but mistaken
idea that it would keep the price of wool |
about 5O or sixty cents pound, for lows
er than that it was seen sheep could not
| be proftably raised for wool in the states
| east of the Missouri river. But the high
duty utterly failed of its purpose, and OPP
Grated in just the contrary direction. 1t
| broke down the price of domestic wool
by gripping the New England cloth man
ufacturers by depriving them of cheap
mixing wool. They have been obliged
to resort to shoddy rags to make filling,
of which they use 5O,000,G00 pounds
year, Think of the sort of cloth that
produces, Is it any wonder that sheep
growing is steadily decreasing in the
states east of the plains2 Few sheep are
now raised east of Kansas and Nebraska
for anything but mutton. The wool has
| ceased to be reckOned of much account.
12.-We don't. And if there was a
better free list; if raw wool, lumber salt,
coal, copper and iron ore, dye. stuffs,
bleaching powders, and several other
raw materials were placed on the free
list our manufacturers would be better
protected 18th half their present bounty
dutiesthan they now are with their war
tariff, and the general public, and espec-
tally the farmers, would be enormously
benefited. The best protection Amer-
can industry can get is peace tariff in
time of peace and by leaving the surplus
revenue in the pockets of the people
Editor Tribune.