Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-10
ATTEMPTS TO EXCUSE A TARIFF
THREAT

ATTEMPTS TO EXCUSE A TARlFf
THREAT.
The San Francisco E1amirae7 endeavers
to break the force of the argument against
the tariff on borax, drawn from the IN
happy experience of the house of William
7. Coleman x Co. But its position does
not deserve even the compliment of being
pronounced ingenious. Reduced to brief
statement the excuse of the Examiner may
be thus given. Coleman & Co. attempted
to corner the market on borax, boracic
acid and borate of lime, and failed to ac-
complish it. Should no pool be formed,
competition between home producers will
keep the prices so low that foreign borax
cannot be sold in the United States, and
it is now wholly excluded by the home
product 1t has been so easy and cheap to
get out borax in California anu Nevada
that the product has glutted the market
and brought the price down to eight cents,
and in consequence the industry pays its
laborers but the lowest rate of wages.
Under protective tariff rate upon i'm
ported bcrax, the price of the home pro-
duct has declined from 143 cents with in
termediate fluctuations, until it has reached
in 1888 eight cents per pound. There
fore, as the tariff rate has not sent borax
up as was expected, it is wise to with
draw it."
This, we believe to be perfectly fair
statement of the Examiner position. But
we submit that it proves nothing. If to
home competition is due the decline of
price under the tariff that practically ex-
cludes the foreign product, and enables us
. supply foreign markets very largely,
how will the removal of the duty tend in
any respect to benefit either home pro
ducer or consumer? If, under the duty,
home competition is active and likely to
remain SO, why should the duty be re-
moved? Who takes harm by its mainte-
nance? Where the excuse for the pro-
posed removal "comes in" under the
statement of our San Francisco contem-
porary we confess inability to discover.
The chief productive borax fields are in
Southwestern Nevada and California.
They are the largest in the world, and in
connection with the production of other
commercial salts fill large space in the
industrial field. The Virginia New
Territorial Enterprise some weeks ago said
treating the California and Nevada
fields in common, because they obey the
national laws of commercial situation:
The alkali works employ many men; the
wages which they paw amount to large sums,
which are drawn largely from other portions of
the United States and are an actual addition to
our wealth. AS the country has been opened
enterprising men have seen and understood the
great value of the basins of alkali that were
once regarded only as obstacles to prospectors
and large sums of money have been expended
in plant for turning the plentiful material into
merchantable article. Some of the works would
surprise people only accustomed to observing
the limited character of similar establishments
in other parts of the world and all of them de-
pend for a profit from the outlay that has been
made, and that which must be added on fair
donmeut OF the alkali fats as deserts On ac-
count of the inability of the owners to compete
with the cheaper labor of other lands in the
manufacture and refining of their products
short time ago sale OF property which
would have involved purchase price of quar-
ter OF million and q large immediate expendi-
ture for machinery, to be followed by the en-
ployment of many men, was broken by the i'm
pending removal of the duty on soda, contem-
plated hy the Mills bill.
Probably the prospective sale referred
to was the same TO which reference was
made in the statement of William T. Cole
man & Co. this week
This work would not have been of the uncer-
IAN our .tlon or of intermittent activity which
frequently characterizes mining operations but
would have been continuous and humanity
speaking, perpetual. 1t has been delayed by
the threatened success of the free trade man
ayers, and will not begin until there is reason
able assurance that time and monev will not be
thrown away in hopel' IS competition with the
almost slave labor by which alkali fields of
other lands are worked. We're this only the
welfare of our neighbors, we would be fairly
interested, but the Comstock and its neighbor
hood is so closely Connected with that section
that miners in Virginia are directly interested
IN its prosperity. 1t has been for a long time an
outlet for idle men of Virginia. Being easier
OF access than any other outlying portion of the
state, where there is probability of work the
communication is constant, and prosperity there
not only indirectly assists the poor man who is
mere, but directly assists the merchants who
receive in exchange fer their wares much
money that has been earned on the salt
marshes and in the mines of Esmeralda and
Inyo counties.
This statement by a journal especially
well-informed upon the subject, and printed
before the failure of Coleman & Co., does
not tally with that of the Eraminer-that
the borax works are inconsequential, the
number of men employed few and the
wages exceedingly low. Moreover, the d.
rect and clear statement of Mr.. Coleman
that he was about to consummate sale of
bora1 works and grounds, but that it was
prevented by the threat of the Mills tar
III bills fiat contradiction of the Err
aminer's assertion that he was attempting
to corner the borax market. But we re-
peat that if all is true that is pleaded by
the Examiner, it does not constitute any
sort of excuse for removing the protection
to borax products given by the tariff. If
we have in California surplus product,
engaging considerable employment of Ia
Dor to produce it, and it is so plentiful as
to be low in price, by reason of home COM
petition, it is the hight of unwisdcm to
open up against it the competition of the
low-priced, servile labor of Thibet, with no
prospect of lowering the price, but with
probability of shutting off the home sup
ply and putting the price at the mercy of
the foreign production.
The San Francisco Gail comments ex-
tendedly upon the fact that public readings
from the novels of Charles Dickens draw
large audiences, when not handful of
people would gather to hear read the far
more finished and scholarly chapters of
the novels of George Eliot or w. NJ.
Thackeray. A reason for this is correctly
stated to be that Dickens treated of ordi-