Iron County register., 1891-05-14
4 Private Home Market.

There are two styles of'home market
in Missouri, one of the general Protected
Il ONE Market, in which trade is allowed
up TO custom house lines; the other tht
local Protected Home Market. maintained
by the benevolent tariff barons for the
benefit of their employees. Protected
Home Market of the second class is main
tanned by the Crystal City Glass Works
in Jefferson County (glass protected by
taxation up 20 $50 per cent. ad valorem)
Crystal City is owned by the company.
Hillsboro and De Soto are free towns in
the same county. The Hillsboro Demo
crat, the official paper of the county
contains De Soto advertisements as we'll
as the advertisement of the general store
of the Crystal City Company. In its is
sue of April 1G, 1897, a De Soto merchant
advertises prices in one column and the
Crystal City Company in another, as fol-
lows:
CRYSTAL PLATE GLASS COMPANY.
10 pounds granulated sugar. 81
l. pounds best light brown sugar. ........ /
DE SOTO PRICES.
1879 pounds granulated sugar. 81
20 pounds best brown sugar..............
Here, then, is an illustration of the
whole Protective Home Market system in
its effects on trade and wages. The Crys-
tai Plate Glass Company has home
market of its own. in which it can control
prices because its customers. who are as
a rule, also its employees, find it exceed
ingly inconvient TO buy elsewhere. Ow-
ing to we'll understood circumstances
over which they have no control, they
are debarred from buying in the cheapest
market. After they have done certain
mount of work for 81 on an ''order'
for 81, the company for this dollar gives
them four and a half pounds OF sugar less
than they could get for an equal sum or
an equal amount of labor if they bought
in the neighboring town of De Soto. The
Crystal City Company here makes all the
profit that is made by the De Soto mer-
chant "a fair prsfit- and in addition
makes an unfair or ''Protected' profit by
cutting down wages four and half
pounds of sugar on the dollars worth.
Sugar is cheaper now than it has been,
because of free trade in the raw sugar
from which table sugar is refined; but
taking other articles of manufactured
goods. the operation of ''protection" on
them in the general home market is found
to be the same which is shown by the diff
ferance between Plate Glass prices for
sugar and De Soto prices. The ''com-
pany store'' of the Protected corporation
is the wheel within the wheel of the gem
eral protective plan. Ii is operated on
the same principle and has the same re-
suits, An American dollar will buy more
in De Soto than it will buy in the home
market at Crystal City. 1t will buy mere
from Paris, Berlin OF, London, dc livered
freight and all charges except tariff taxes
paid, than it wi buy anywhere in the
United States under the High Tariff.
This is not true Of breadstufis and provi-
sions. which are cheaper here than any
where in Europe. because we have more
land than people, but it is true of all man.
ufactured goods.
Thus the tariff cuts down the laborer's
wages throughout the country, just as
the Crystal City Plate Glass Company
cuts them down by deducting and keep
ing for itself four and half pounds of
sugar on every dollars worth due It's men
for labor. 1t gets this unfair profit from
them while at the same time it is getting
another unfair profit from laborers every
where else by Withholding part of the
glass they have earned by work. A man
who has worked for and earned dollar
tries to use it to buy dollars worth of
glass, but the Glass Trust gives him only
10 cents worth and so cuts his wages by
taking away his earnings without fair
return.
Whan this is proved so that it cannot be
denied the monopoly claims it is obliged
to do this or cut the wages of its own
workmen. And making this claim, it
proceeds to cut their wages
by corralling them in its little local home
market and levying private tariff tax OF
over % per cent. on the dollar of the su-
gar they haye earned as wages. .-Repub-
lie.