Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-05-13

Price of Raw Sugar and Raised the
Price of Refined, Thus Adding About
SIT, 900, 900 to Its Yearly Profits.
The Philadelphia Press, the high tariff
organ of the Manufacturers club, thus
scores the sugar trust:
Congress has provided that many
millions of revenue heretofore obtained
from sugar duties shall be diverted from
the public treasury and be given to the
people. The trust, under the shelter
given to it by congress for wise and
fair purpose, proposes in turn to divert
a portion of this money from the pockets
of the people to the pockets of the MEM
bers OF the trust.
Brethren, we say to you that if the
protect tive system is to be employed for
such purposes as this, the game is up.
No champion of that system can sue
coed, even if he were willing to try, in
commanding to the people at one and
the same time the protective system and
| the sugar trust. 1t is quite impossible
to expect the nation to regard with en-
thusiasm, because it proposed to reduce
the price of sugar, a law which enables
the sugar trust to defeat that intention.
What the purpose of the act is consum-
ers do not so much care.
1.-The thing that appeals most strongly
to them is the actual fact that sugar
prices have fallen. Now, if sugar
prices shall again advance under the
manipulation of a protected conspiracy
against the people, it will be useless to
commend consumers to the purpose of
Mr.. Mckinley. They will conclude,
and rightly conclude, that if the whole
benefit Of the lower duties is not to come
to them, it should go once again into
the treasury of the United States. The
opponents of the protective system will
have placed in their hands, at the most
critical moment in the history of Ameri-
can protection, a potent weapon with
which to assail the protective theory,
and we venture to say that there is
small reason to doubt that the result
will be overwhelming defeat for the pro-
tective system.
Openly, in view of every man in the
nation, there will be unanswerable
demonstr alton that the free traders do
not lack justification for their often re-
peated allegation that the protective
tariff is used by manufacturers for the
purpose OF enriching themselves at the
cost of their fellow citizens. The for
nation of the trust is indeed a challenge
issued to the people. The latter, through
their representatives in congress, have
decreed that sugar shall be cheapened
The trust, on the contrary, declares that
it shall not be cheapened. There can be
no doubt Of the conclusion of this con-
fiict of interests if the people shall be
thoroughly reused, but there is some
reason for fearing that the consequences
may involve other than the offending
parties. The sugar trust places the en-
tire manufacturing interest of the csun-
try in jeopardy by its action, and in be-
half of that interest we enter protest
against the course that it is pursuing.
Protest ng, however, is likely to be
Of small service in averting the peril in
which protected industry has been
placed by this combination. There can
be no safety but in action, and it may be
conjecture6 that there would be few ex-
pressions of grief from protectionists if
a Republican senate should Join with a
Democratic house in sending to a Re
publican president, Just as soon as the
sugar trust has made its monopoly COM
plete, a bill placing all grades of refined
sugar upon the free list. The protec-
tionists who defend protection upon
grounds of public interest have no con-
Germ to apologize for it when it is per-
verted to the interest of few private
individuals. In truth, such abuse of
the system ought to encounter prompt
resistance from the sincere friends of
home industry, for the man who mis-
uses the tariff in such a manner is a
more dangerous enemy of the system
than the most active of the apostles of
free trade. The question for considera-
ton would appear to be, Shall the sugar
trust be permitted to use protection
for the overthrow of projections"
Protected by the tariff ON refined
= sugar, the sugar trust is now making
profits at the rate of 73.OS per cent. on
the actual value of its properties. The
work required of the men employed in
the sugar house is the hardest kind of
: work possible, and considerable num-
Der of the men are forced to work in in.
, tense heat. The low rate of wages,
$3.50 per day of ten hours, which the
trust is willing to pay is so low that nc
American workman will work in the
sugar houses-even Italians prefer to
e work on the streets, pick rags and sell
, fruit. The greater part of the men EN-,
ployed are Poles and Hungarians, who
4 have been brought over under contract
t This is a true picture of tariff protect
: ed industry; where are the benefits to
: the workingman?