The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1889-12-14

are ON a par with Eighteenth century
highway robbery. Yet in sugar, petro-
leum, cotton seed oil. white lead, cop
per and many other substances, prices
are artificially maintained by trust mo-
nopolies. For example, the United States
have by far the richest copper mines in
the world. With improved appliances
used here, the output of ore by each man
makes the cost of wages very low. 1t
was shown some years ago, in a report
Of the Tamarack Copper Mining COM
pany, that copper ore could be brought
to the surface of the mine at less than
same report that, after paying the ex-
penses of smelling, refining, freight and
commission, copper could be laid down
in New York city for less than six cents.
Yet the present price of Lake Superior
copper in the New York Metal Exchange
is eleven cents a pound, or just enough
to prevent the importation of foreign
copper, with a protective duty of four
cents a pound. What this means hardly
needs to be told. The copper mining
companies in the Lake Superior district
have paid enormous dividends, more
than their capital stock many times
over, to their owners. Every brass lock,
every pair Of laced shoes, every piece of
copper wire, every copper cent has paid
tribute to these robbers.
Similarly with sugar. The Sugar trust
practically controls all the refineries in
the United States, except that of Claus
%Spreckels, in California. The cost of
refining raw sugar, including a moder.
ate profit, is five-eighths of a cent. The
Sugar trust charges exactly double this
amount, or n and a quarter cents. The
Sugar trust owners boast that the United
States refneries can turn out refined
sugar cheaper than any other refineries
in the world. Why should they not be
taken at their word and be allowed tc
beat the world in an unprotected market,
to the great advantage of the consumer:
In like manner the White Lead trust
keeps up the price of white lead, and con.
s~equently of all kinds of paints; the
Steel Rail trust keeps up the price OF
steel rails, and increases the expense Of
building railways; the Cotton Seed Oil
1uoO hSCpo uP Fix pAIOo VI SOoIou oCCO
oil, and incidentally has that article sub
stituted as a counterfeit of table salad
oil.
Everywhere that a protected industry
is small enough to be monopolized by g
few rich capitalists a trust is formed, not
to reduce expenses and cheaper prices,
but to curtail production and levy ex.
orbitant profits off the consumer.
But some persons may say, "Why
don't the farmers form a trust to raise
the price of wheat and cattle?" The
answer to this is, that the unfortunate
farmer cannot afford to do so. AS long
as the price of wheat depends or it's ex
port value, the foreigner who now buys
American wheat would, if the price OF
American wheat sensibly raised, buy
Indian or Russian wheat. So with cattle.
There are broad spreading pastures in
Australia and the Argentine Republic on
which cattle can be reared to compete
against American cattle in the open
markets of the world.
For trusts there is only prompt and
%eficacious remedy. Whenever a trust
is formed to raise prices in a protected
industry, the tariff on that protected in.
dustry should be lowered until prices are
forced back again to their natural level.
This is the only specific for trusts.