The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-02-24
LABOR AND TARIFFS.

The wages paid in making a ton of pig
iron are $685., while the tariff tax, which
is added to the price of every ton of do
mestic iron sold, is 1912.
The Tribune urged, which we admitted,
that the materials and other expenses must
be considerable. That paper now makes
the following attempt to show why we
should pay the ironmaster S6.72 while he
pays his men but 1886 on each ton:
VIII our contemporary tell US how much there
IS in a cost of ton of iron that is not labor? It
can only be the value of the iron ore and coal
in the mines. All the rest is labor Tribune.
Our contemporary has forgotten three
items: rent, interest and profts-especially
profits.
Certainly, at bottom, the cost of nearly
everything is labor, leaving out interest,
rent and profits; but not labor in that par
ticular industry, nor even of the country in
which iron making is carried on. Thus,
the cost Of coal is largely labor cost, the
Western price paid to labor for mining soft
coal being fixed at 7215 cents ton by the
Chicago board of arbitration. But upon
this same coal there is tariff of IS cents
per ton ''to equalize the difference in
wages''-as if the foreign coal miner
worked for nothing and paid his own board
There must be no dragging in of the
labor cost of coal, therefore, in the discus
sion concerning pig iron. There is special
tariff taxed and charged upon every ton of
coal sold here that is sufficient to pay every
cent of the wages of mining the coal The
labor cost of coal is as foreign to the tariff
on pig iron as it is to that on sugar.
1t is worth while to remark that the rate
to be paid miners for taking out soft coal,
as fixed by the board of arbitrati on, caused
an advance in the miners wages, by which
they were enabled to earn Il cents day
This is the labor, forsooth, that the tariff
of IS cents ton on soft coal is supposed to
protect against the "pauper labor of Eu-
rope'
The bitEminous coal of the Atlantic sea-
board is sold at about $500 ton. The
mining of the coal is done by contract, the
miner furnishing his own tools and hiring
the helper who loads the car. In the Clear
field district, Pennsylvania, the miner re-
ceives 80 cents a ton; in the Reynoldsville
district the rate varies from 45 to So cents
III OiLAOA la duo IDlolI OOuublcS buS IdDe Is 81
cents; in the Cumberland mines, so cents
In Georges Creek mines, Maryland, the
rate is so cents; in the Clarksbarg mines
West Virginia, Is cents; in the Elk Garden
mines, so cents; in the Pocahontas mines
Virginia, Is cents. These figures cover the
whole of the bituminous coal region, which
sends coal to the Atlantic seaboard, the rate
In the most important mines being from 4
$50 cents ton. Throughout the northern
central and western coal fields the rates for
mining are higher and range from 60 &C nts
to 81 ton: but the cost of freight
effectually shields these from foreign com.
petition. The tariff of % cents ton is sup
posed to protect these coal miners from the
competition of the ''pauper labor of Nova
Scotia" where the miners receive exactly
the same wages. So much for coal, now as
to iron ore.
The cost Of mining iron ore in any min,
of consequence in this country is not ovel
S1.25 a ton, while in great majority O!
cases, the labor cost is less than 81 per ton
There is not single port to which
foreign ores can be shipped in this countr,