The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1891-01-06
TARIFF LESSON.

Growth OF the Iron oushlet'
CHICAGO htcr. OCEAN.
sat down with q man whose years
were evidenced by his white hair, but
whose kindly eyes were shining with
intelligence, and whose reputation for
business sagacity was we'll known the
country over. Said he: ~ have been
connected with the hardware trade for
more than forty years. My recollections
n anti.war prices are vivid, but ! have
lately been amusing myself by looking
oyer nv old invoices, and II these men
who talkso glibly about the good old
times, when there was no war tariff
would look over these prices with me,
Pm sure they'd change their tune"
"Please tell me some OF the things
that you have in your mind" said,
"There is an English invoice" he
said, taking q paper out OF pigeon hole,
Ioi the year 1858. Those were the days
when the slave owners OF the South
were directing and controlling legisla..
zion in Washington. This is a bill Of
merchantable iron bought OF the Chill
ippton Company, Liverpool, and sent
direct to US. What is the price, think
Won? Remember, them was the good
I'D days when 1 paid 6 TO s cents per
pound for butter, and hired many a man
TO work in my fields at 90 cents per
day."
"iron ought to have been proportion
ately cheap" lsaid.
"Yes," said he, ''that Is the cong OF the
free. trader; II wages OF so cents per day
will buy proportionstely as much as 81
will buy, when things cost double the
price, then the low wages are fully as
good for the laborer'"
"But what did you pay for iron in
1882" / asked.
"Well, sir, was billed to US at El2 los
per ton. see memorandum here in
the writing OF my old partner, showing
that we figure the English pound at
81 As; 60 English iron cost US in Liver
pool, in 1858, $54 70 per ton"
compared with the price paid for
farm products, that seems 10 be a very
high price"
$50 it was If you think Of figures but
Iifyou remember that those were En-
gIish prices, under tariff for revenue,
You will see they were the free traders
ideal, and must have been right. Here
is a miscellaneous bill Of hardware Of
that year from manufacturers agents In
New York. A dozen door butts, in job.
bing lots, cost forty.nine cents dozen"
"And what now~
TWENTY-FIVE cents. Here were COM
mon bed casters at fourteen cents q set;
/ buy them to-day for four cents. Here
lisa bill Of shovels from the Ames fac.
tory; price $40 per dozen. An extra
good workman could earn ashovel by
two days work, and no doubt he was
thankful that he had the work to do"
"Whep did you begin to buy Ameri-
can iron"
II am not sure, but / find that in ~
and '5S we are buying iron in Pitts.
hurgh and in the Mahoning Valley.
The price has gone down to $40, but my
recollectious are that our iron furnaces
we're having a very hard time Of 1t.
1.-THE war must have doomed up
prices"
ayes; the war, with the tremendous
premium on gold and the immense de-
nand created by railroad building,
doomed up prices, but we ,jobbed iron
| in 1871 at so per ton; then the railroad
craze of III and ~ set in and prices
went up to $l07, but the panic Of '73,
which was brought on by this sans rail-
road craze, knocked the bottom out OF
such prices, and prices have been down
to $50. inst about one-tbird probably Of
tho price we paid for it delivered here in
1855"
"How with goods made Of iron?"
swell, l mentioned Ames' shovels;
price was $40 per dtz4n in the good old
times OF $50, they were unchanged in
80; to-day the Ames' shovel is i'm
mensely superior in quality and finish,
and we sell at IS so. Take common
barn.door or gate hinge-"strap hinges"
we call them; they cost 81 % in the
days befoh the wah, and 81 cents per
dozen to. day for the same size"
"But machinery makes them, and
ought to get the credit OF some OF the
reduction"
Eyes, but the men who work in the
shops are paid twice the wages they were
in 80. Wrought nails cost 81 cents per
pound in 80; they sell at y cents to-
day. l sold common stable fork for
81 % in SO; the very best is sold to-day
for half that price. Why, in '5S, we sent
to Rhode Island for nuts and washers,
paying 10 cents per pound for them; to-
day we job them at 81 ceAts."
"What ia mostly to be credited with
the reduction
Competition among American fac.
tories for the trade. There Is no COM
petition in the world SO fierce. A fac
tory is started and when once going the
managers seem determined to have all
the earth in their line. As their orders
increase they enlarge their works and
drum for more trade. By and bya com.
petitor enters the field. So long as the
lirst factory is busy with ordersit makes
no cut in prices, but the moment 1t
feels elimination in business 1t attacks
the new comer's prices. Formerly this |
cutting went on until one or the other |
went to the wall, and the survivor then, |
for a time, had the field to itself and
made money, but nowadays a trust is |
formed and an attempt made 10 make
cutting OF prices unnecessary"
what do you think Of combine
tions?"
II never knew one that lasted very
long, and when it broke, as 1t always
did in the Course Of time, prices went
wilder than ever. There was the table |
cutlery combination Of years ago. 1t
made a lot OF rules and regulations, and
had sliding scale Of discounts, and
beemed up prices out Of all reason. But
it eventually came to grief, and prices
went down so that l bought steel knife
and fork for 50 30 per gross! That is 2
cents each for knife or a fork Think
OF that. / have paid So, gold, in Eng.
land, for poorer goods in the good old
times"
On! ye who teach the ingenious youth