New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-10-30
GAINING LIGHC.

The advertisers are getting inc petter OF tne
editors in Free Trade newspapers. Hundreds
of merchants want to make known the fact
that they have not put up prices, ss the Free
Trade editors have been asserting. The hun
dreds mt their announcements into the same
papers that have been printing the faisehoods,
and SO make the situation trying to even the
most hardened editorial nerves. 10 be exposed
in their own columns for telling ghost stories
about their own advertisers has its disadvan-
taees and the editorials grow feebler and less
frequent. But that is only the beginning OF
an education which the good people OF THIS
country are going to enjoy free OF charge, and
to profit by ever after.
II has long been point OF most bitter con-
troyersy whether the duties on imports are
borne fully by the consumer, or In part or
wholly by the foreign producer. Considerable
light on that question begins to come already
A dry. goods dealer, who has always scofed at
nrotectlye doctrines, makes this confession ::
"The agent of German house with which
deal has offered to sell me bill of fine worsteds
at exactly the price paid before the change
of duties, ne goods to be delivered as soon
as they could be imported. | asked how ne
could do that, and he answered that his house
would have to put down prices OF else stop
the works. 1t strikes ME the foreigner has to
pay the whole duty there" Next comes
distinguished iron-master one of the visitors
now in this country, and soberly explains why
the new duties will not help American manu-
features, thus: "YOu see we shall have an
enormous overproduction, and makers will cut
each others Threats until they get prices down
to the bottom. At the same time your works
will have to pay more for labor After little
our prices will be enough below yours again to
enable us to ship as much at the new duty as
we did at the Old.' But when the British
makers put down the price. who pays the differ
ence?
There are going to be many thousand Illus
trations of the same principle within the next
wear. The American voter has had his atten-
ton carefully turned to the subject by the
frantic outcry of Free-Trade papers about adj
vancing prices. lie will look at the facts day
by day. and will remember what he used to
pay before the new duties were imposed Tor
this or that article. Where he can, he is going
to find out what the foreign prices are, and
what they were. A large number of American
merchants are going to tell him, personally and
by their advertisements and circulars. Grad
ualy the American voter will come to under
stand, so thoroughly that nobody can deceive
him again, that the Free-Trade papers were
not rigidly adhering to truth. 1T will not take
more than a year of such experience to con-
vince American voters that an advance OF
duties is very apt to prove tax on the foreign
producer for the privilege of selling in this
country.
A ton of theory does not weigh as much as
single fact of personal experience. The Ameri-
can who finds that his woOllen and worsted
goods and carpets cost him not cent more
than they did, but that hundreds of mills are
at work which have been idle, will not be in
haste again to believe that "the whole duty
is always added to the price"