The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1892-03-18
TARIFF NOT A TAX.
THE INFLUENCE OF A PROTECTIVE
DUTY ON COST.

Free-trade Faliacy Exposed - Bradford
Manufacturers Pay the Duty by Lower
ing Their Selling Prioe-The Tariff Di-
minishes Profits.
All of our readers are aware of the
Free-trade claim that the duty imposed
on imported merchandise is added by
the vender to the cost of such goods.
This claim is made without reservation.
But the case of certain Bradford worst
eds now pending before the United
States board of general appraisers does
not seem to justify 80 broad claim.
At present the Bradford manufactur-
ers can either shut down their mills, or
offer goods in this market at such price,
duty paid, that they can compete with
the American mills. The lines are IN
doubleday hard for the Bradford people,
but they have no other recourse, as no
where else in the world can they find
customers wealthy enough to take their
product at any price, consequently sew
eral hundred invoices were lately pre-
scented at our custom houses that were
thought to put the value of goods below
the actual cost of their manufacture, and
the value was raised, on an average,
1917 per cent; for, though the duty has
been raised 80 per cent, "the goods (as
stated by the bulletin of the wool manu-
facturers) are still sold here at the old
prices, although there has been no ma
terial reduction in the cost of labor in
Bradford, and but slight reduction in
the cost of the raw material"
AS this increased valuation carried a
penalty, the importers appeared before
the appraisers by attorneys, who had
affidavits from Bradford manufacturers
and commission merchants, saying that
their goods were not undervalued, and
their affidavits were Endorsed subse-
quently by United States Consul lib
bets at Bradford, who examined the
books of many Bradford manufacturing
firms. This proves conclusively Gf there
has been no perjury that the tariff on
worsteds has merely resulted in de-
creased profits to British manufacturers,
and not increased costs to American
consumers. The advantage of protec-
ton to American manufacturers, in this
instance, has been that the profits of
Bradford manufacturers are now prob
ably at about bedrock figures, and they
cannot cut so per cent. off their pres
ent prices for the sake of closing our
wooden mills.
This practice by British manufacture
ers of reducing the price to American
consumers to counterbalance the tariff
is of considerable standing. The duty
on steel, which under the tariff of 1857
had been Is and 10 per cent. ad va
loren, had been raised by 1865 to
specific duty of ~ to three cents per
pound. To this was added an ad valo-
rem duty in some instances. This re-
suited in statement made in report
by DR.. David A. Wells in 1867 Che had
not been in England them:
"That since the introduction of the
manufacture of these grades of steel in
the United States, or since 1859, the price
of foreign steel of similar qualities has
been very considerably reduced through
the effect of the American competition,
and that the whole country in this way
has gained more than sufficient to coun-
terbalance the tax levied as Protection
for the American steel manufacture,
which has grown up under its influence"
About this time the Sheffield steel
workers, who in general refused to sell
directly to American purchasers, con-
signing their goods to their agents in
this country, were charged with long
continued and systematic fraudulent un-
dervaluations. This charge was dis
tasteful, particularly to Thomas Firth
& Sons, the head of which house hoped
to get rich enough to be knighted, and
they wrote to the treasury department,
July 10, 1869:
1--WE have very large steel trade in
America, amounting to large proper
ton of our whole business, and in that
market there is from various circum-
stances much competition, and these two
causes-large trade and competition
combined-have induced us to be salts
fed with smaller average profit there
than we have realized on the average in
our other markets."