Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1889-08-16
TIN PLATES AND DINNER rams.
4 Plain Object Lesson in Protection W.
Free Trnde,


From the Boston Journal
One subject which has occasioned the free
trade press great anxiety and agitation in
connection with the proposed increase in the
duty on tin plate is the resultant increase in
the price of the workinghams dinner pail
| For months they have been ringing the
changes upon this subject, and have dwelt
upon it with such plantive and pathetic in
sistance that one might suppose that, in case
| the change was made in the tariff, the work
ingman, in order 10 secure dinner pail,
would be forced TO 20 without that still
more necessary thing, the dinner which
should be carried therein. Some one has
taken the pains to investigate this subject
with special reference 10 the dinner pail in
| question. The present duty ON tin plates is
one cent a pound. 1t is proposed to make
it two cents in order to leave margin
which would make it possible to establish
the tin plate manufacture in this coun-
try. A first class No dinner pail
seven inches deep and six inches in diane
ter, with its appurtenances, now costs forty
cents at retail. The weight of tin plate re
quired 10 make such pail, including an al
lowance for waste in cutting, is pound
and half. Accepting as correct the free
trade assumption that the consumer pays
the whole of an enhanced duty-an as
sumption which we hardly need say cannot
be lustihed-the laborers dinner pail, if the
duty were raised as proposed, would cost a
cent and a half more than at present A
dinner pail which is used with care will last
four years. Calling the increase in the cost
of the pail two cents, the actual burden i'm.
posed upon the laborer, over which the free
traders have grown so indignant and so
sympathetic, would be one half cent per an
NUN.
Even this burden, however, is calculated
on the assumption that the cost of the pail TO
the consumer would he increased by the full
amount of the enhanced duty. The proba-
bility, however is that after short time,
during which the manufacturer was getting
foothold, the dinner pail would not cost
cent more than at present. Competition
would operate here, as 1t has in scores of
other instances, to bring down the price.
When we turn our attention for a moment
from the possible increase of a hal cent per
annum in the cost of the laborerfs dinner
pail to the results which may reasonably be
expected from the proposed increase in the
duty, it will be seen that good many thou
sands of wOrkngmen would he better off in
that they would have better dinner TO car
ry in their pals, and would be able to carry
it more regularly. At present we consume
about three-fourths of the worlds entire
output Of timed plates. Last year we i'm
ported over three hundred thousand tons of
them, and sent out of the country in pay
ment for them more than twenty million
dollars 1t is obvious that an industry which
could market twenty million dollars worth
per annum of its products in this country
would employ a good many workingmen
and would he very valuable addition to
the industries of the country. 1t would be
clear to any one but a Grass free trader that
it is better to scatter the twenty million
dollars among American producers than to
send it over to enrich English and Welsh
manufacturers Evidently there is more
than one side to this dinner pail question.