Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-08-25


dom Injuries Manufactured Tissue
Paper as a Specialized Manufacture.
Various excuses are given for increas-
ing the duties on manufactures. Some
times the proposed object is to preserve
an industry threatened with destruction.
Sometimes it is to create an industry for
which some one processes to have dis.
covered dvmand. Always, of course,
there is he professed care of the Ameri-
can workingman. Doubtless all these
reasons in turn We're urged for the H.
crease Of the duty on tissue paper,
though certainly none of them properly
applies.
The former tariff was 25 per cent. ad
valorem; the Mckinley act increased it
to Is per cent. ad valorem and eight
cents per pound. On the lower priced
papers the increase amounted toever $50
per cent. On ream of the lower priced
foreign paper the duty under the old law
amounted to thirty-two cents; under the
Mckinley act 1T amounts to seventy-fve
cents. The increase was not needed for
the protection of the American workmen
from the competition of the "pauper
labor" of Europe, because the price cut
no figure in the competition between the
domestic and foreign articles, either be-
fore or since the amendment of the tariff
schedules. The lowest priced article of
imported colCred tissue paper costs far
more at the mfll in Europe than the best
product Of the American mills.
As a matter of fact no American man
ufacturer has cared to engage in the pro-
duction Of the wide range of colors that
would be necessary to supply the de-
mand, even if he had the monopoly of
the entire trade of the country Colored
tissue papers in this country are used 10
only limited extent compared with the
countries of Europe. 4 single house n
Russia, for instance, handles more cor
ored tissue paper than all the importers
of America. While in America it is
used principally 20 make flowers, lamp
shades and small house ornaments, and
| only to a limited extent at that, in
nearly all the countries of Europe it is
put to great variety of uses.
Several years ago a domestic manu-
facturer began the manufacture of
full range of colors and produced a first
class article, but within three months
he had oversupplied the trade and be-
came his own competitor to such an ex-
tent that be literally drove himself ont
of the business. After failing TO get an
importer 20 whom he applied to take the
mill off his hands and run it on an offer
of its use for three years for nothing, he
| reconstructed the mill and went into
another business. He had a practical
monopoly of the American trade while
he was IN the business, and found that
with his single mill he could glut the
market with three months production
AS IN several other cases in which the
| tariff was increased by the Mckinley
bill for the purpose of giving the domes-
tic manufacturer more complete mo-
nopoly of the trade, the increased tax
has failed of its object. There is no
more domestic paper made, and the de-
mand for the imported article continues
| just about what 1t used TO be under the
old tariff. The price of the domestic ar
tcle went uD from sixty cents per ream
| to eighty cents directly after the increase
in the duty, but this was only nonI-
nal, not an actual, increase. Within a
week, 1t Is said, the domestic manufac-
turers began cutting prices. so that now
they are lower, if anything, than they
| were before the billion dollar congress
increased The duties.
The only perceptible effect of the in
creased tariff has been to compel the
consumer to pay more for the paper he
uses and will continue to use, as it has
been demonstrated, in preference to the
| poorer domestic article, Notwithstanding
the great increase in the duty.
Here, then, is an example of an in
crease in the tariff that helps neither
manufacturer nor laborer, and only takes
| from the consumer a considerable sum
to be sent to the already OVERLOOKING
Golfers of he national government. Ia
other wOrls, users of tissue paper are
taxed 40 produce revenue that the gov
eminent does not need, and professedly
to stimulate an industry for which there
is little or 40 demand.