The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-12-07
Iron Men Want Tariff Reform.

"Give me free ore," said Mr.. Bent,
president of the Pennsylvania Steel
company, to representative of the
Philadelphia Record, "and I'll sell pig
iron in Liverpool and send steel rails
to London. What American indus
tries most want is free opportunity,
and not legislative protection nor re-
selection.
II do not want to be understood
as speaking from a purely selfish
standpoint. Whether OF not pro-
tective tariff has built up such in
dustries as ours is not so much of a
practical question as what is the
proper policy to be pursued in the
present and for the future. 1t is lit
orally "a condition not theory
which confronts u.s.. When the great
works at Sparrow Point shall be in
full operation the Pennsylvania Steel
Company must import l ,000,0 900 tons
of Bessemer ore per annum. To re-
strict US to the home supply is utter
ly impracticable; there are no ores
to be had at home such as are need
ed for our purposes. We would have
to go thousands of miles into the in
terror for them. To raise the duties
on this ore to such a point as to pro
tect' the American mines and miners
from Cuban and Mediterranean Bes-
semer ores would simply be to close
all our works, put out our furnaces,
throw tens of thousands of working
men out of employment and render
unproductive tens of millions of
capital. Even at the present rate of
duty we have to pay $3.50, 900 per
gear tariff tao. This must either
come off the wages of American work
ingmen or off the profits of Ameri-
can manufacturers This means
$1.50 impost on every ton of our pro-
duct, and a handicap of that amount
upon us in our competition with for
eign manufacturers for whatever dis
lance that dollar and half would
carry our products into the worlds
market further than they now go.
Two-thirds of our product is shipped
to seaboard points to be distributed
either to foreign countries or along
the coast from Boston to New Or
leans. All the leading railroads have
seaboard terminals. With view to
that consideration we planted our
new works on the water, and we be-
lieve the best way to restore Ameri-
can commerce is to build up such
establishments by the seaboard.
The whole tendency in the past has
been to drive the business of iron
and steel manufacture from the sea-
board towards the West, making the
charges Of transportation, even when
expectation becomes practicable, so
heavy as to put the American man
ufacturer at great disadvantage.
Even the ships that we build have
to be brought to the seaboard-that
is, the materials for them-from far
inland. My theory is that if the
government should removenthe pres
ent duty on ore it would be vastly
conducive TO the building up Of in
dustrial establishments on the sea-
board. The iron manufacturers of
the West can find their market in
the West. They will have, as they
ought to have the advantage of home
ores at their own door, and these
will always have the advantage of
railroad transportation over foreign
ores admitted free of duty"
Il use Ayers Cherry Pectoral free
ly in my practice, and recommend it
in cases of whooping cough among
children, having found it more GER
tain to cure that troublesome disease
than any other medicine know Of"
SO says DIR. Bartlett, of Concord,