Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-03
INSTRUMENTATION ON TRUSTS.

MISINFORMATION ON TRUSTS.
The arguments Of the free-traders on the
connection of the tariff with trusts, need to
be revised with the purpose of bringing
them into some distant relation with the
facts. The other day we had to refer to the
remarkable theory of free trade cotem-
porary, that a 31Ic duty on sugar is a
revenue tarif-but 6-1oc duty, as proposed
by the Senate, is protective tarif-now it
is equally necessary to notice the produc-
tion of a somewhat familiar list of alleged
trusts, in protected industries, in the speech
of Senator Faulkner, of West Virginia,
which is quoted approvingly by the Phila-
delphia Record, as new thing.
The DISPATCH has heretofore made its
position plain on the subject of trusts. 1t
has shown that those attemps at monopoly
seem to defeat the primary and fundamental
purpose of the protective policy, namely the
encouragement of domestic competition in
the protected industries. 1t is logical de-
duction, therefore, that when any protected
industry falls under the control of trust
and competition is smothered, the protective
duty should be removed. That the tariff is
not the cause of trusts is plainly shown BY
the fact that some of the greatest and strong
est of these combinations have taken control
of interests that are not protected; but that
when trust is established in protected
industry, the tariff is a bulwark to it, is no
less indisputably established by existing
facts. If the Mckinley bill falls short of
Al s-1o L.
right to make all the capital they can out of
it. But they will not strengthen their cause
by producing lists of alleged trusts which
not only disregard facts by including trusts
which never had any existence, but are SO
absolutely stupid as to omit some of the
the present tariff.
The list which was produced in the Sem
ate, and is reproduced in the esteemed Phil
adelphia Record, has done duty as Demo-
cratic campaign material for two years. Its
value as an enumeration of the tariff-pro-
tected trusts is illustrated by the fact
that it does not include the most
prominent of them all, the Sugar
Trust. protected by duty Of from 20 to so
per cent on the various grades. This would
be naturally assigned to the fact that the
Republican policy includes the removal of
the duties on sugar; but when we find that
that the constructors of this list had not in
formation enough to include in it the Jute
Bagging Combination, we can only ascribe
it to monumental ignorance.
But this fayorlte ammunition of the free
traders is still more remarkable for its reck-
less superiority to the facts in putting in its
list alleged trusts of which there is not the
slightest existence. Of the eighteen alleged
trusts in the lists, there are five which are
in effective operation. If the makers of the
list had had honesty enough to include the
Sugar Trust, the full tale of half-a-dozen or
3315 per cent of truth would have been
reached. The salt, nail and rubber shoe
trusts, which are quoted in the list, are in
stances in which combinations have been
talked Of, or attempted, but have not sue
ceeded, the failure of the salt and
rubber trusts being cotemporary his
tory. But the utter reliance upon
imagination for these alleged facts
is showing by the standing presence
in the list of such titles as the general
iron trust" general steel trust" ''tin
trust and so on. Everyone who has any
knowledge of the general iron industry
knows that there has never been anything
in it at all approximating trust. Every
one ought to know that there is free compe-
tition in the steel industry; while the utter
stupidity of alleging that there is ''tin |
trust" is shown when we reflect that the |
very free-traders who are quoting this list |
have been making the most of the argu.
ment that there is absolutely no tin indus
try in the U United States to-day. The alleea.
ton of trusts in the case of the other in |
dustries included in this list is as utterly |
as in those we have mentioned. |
The trust question is vital one, and its
with the tariff is an uncomfort- |
ably live one. But that does not make it |
iustifable or discreet for our friends, the |
free traders, to produce alleged statements
which can only be explained on the suppo-
sition either of ambitious mendacity or of |
phenomenal ignorance.