Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-07-08
WAGES IN IRON MILLS
A WHOLESALE CUT TO BE MADE
IN SPITE OF THE TARIFF.

hchlnieys Irohibitory Duty Made by
the manufacturer Themselves to Raise
the Poor Mans Wages" Has an Entirely
Different Effect.
Our high tariff friends are beginning
to admit that a serious reduction of
wages-a wholesale cut" the Philadel-
phia Press says--is soon to be made in
the iron and steel mills, but their COM
ments are discordant. For example, the
Pittsburg Dispatch is moved by the i'm
pending reduction at Mr.. Carnegie's fac
tories to say:
eff the iron manufacturers wish to
strike every tariff advocate dumb and
paralyZe the entire campaign for protec-
ton, they could NOT do so more effectu-
ally than by confronting them during
the campaign with the spectacle of mills
BANDING idle through the forcible at
tempt to reduce wages 90 per cent. in a
protected industry
The Philadelphia Press complains that
it has been forgotten by certain persons
''that the Mctlinle- tariff reduced the
duties on all forms Of iron manufacture
in which a reduc-i ion of wages is now
taking place or has taken place" The
Boston Journal makes the same asser-
ton. But neither of these papers has
said that the reduction of wages has
been caused by the slight reduction of
duties in parts of the iron and steel
schedule. They know very well that in
nearly every instance the duties which
were slightly reduced by the Mckinley
act had been practically prohibitory,
and that the corresponding duties as
they stand now have substantially the
same effect. The old duty on steel or
iron beams, for example, was S2S per
ton. With the assistance of that very
high duty the manufacturers in this
country, who had been in combination
for years, exacted from consumers ring
price of $69.44 per ton. The duty was
reduced from SOS to S2O.16. Owing to
the dissolution of the trust combination
the price of steel or iron beams has fallen
from S69.44 to S42.56. The reduction of
duty was 1874 per ton; the reduction of
price, caused by the dissolution of an
unlawful and greedy combination and
the restoration of competition, is SCI. SS
per ton. The duty is still prohibitory.
The manufacturers do not suffer by rea-
son of importatiors for the duty is too
high to permit imI ortations to be made
so long as the price at home is deter
mined by that competition which the
manufacturers strangled for sixteen
years.
Our high tariff friends should not for
get what their own leaders have said
about these duties in the present iron
and steel schedule. After the enactment
of the new tariff the following comments
were published in The Bulletin of the
American Iron and Steel association,
which is the official organ of the manu-
facturers who have since reduced the
wages of their workmen and are now
preparing to make further and greater
reductions:
Take it all in all, the new metal
schedule is good one, and our iron and
steel manufacturers will never see a bet
ter one. 1t has been secured with much
effort and no little anxiety. 1t is the
oest that was attainable. We are salts
fed"
While Mr. Mckinley and his associates
were making this schedule Mr. Henry
W. Oliver, of Pittsburg. was in Washing
ton as a representative of the iron aud
steel manufacturer and as an adviser of
the majority of the Mckinley ways and
means committee. After the passage of
the bill he returned to Pittsburg, and
there made report in which he declared
that the rates of duty in the new sched-
ule ''were those proposed by the manu-
facturers themselves" As Speaker Reed
said after the election of 1890, the manu-
facturers of iron anC steel had obtained in
the new tariff lust what they wanted"
The speaker was complaining then that
the manufacturers had shown ingrati-
tude in not contributing for the cam
paign in 1890 so literally as they had
contributed in 1888. As Mr.. Reed also
declared in 1890 that the "object of the
Mckinley tariff WAS Ito raise the poor
mans wages" the manufacturers in
Pittsburg and in the Mahoning and She
mango valleys should now employ him to
explain to their woTkmen why it has be-
come necessary or expedient to make
what the Philadelphia Press calls "a
wholesale cut varying from Is to so
per cent"
We notice that our high tariff friends
no longer rely upon Mr.. J. W. Jones, of
Hutchinson, Kan, for assistance in their
treatment of this subject. Heretofore,
when we have ventured to point out re-
auctions of wages n the iron and steel
factories the Boston Journal, the Indi-
annapolis Journal, the Tariff leagues
Bulletin and other advocates of McKin-
leyism have turned with confidence to
Mr.. J. w. Jones, of Hutchinson. and
have published, with much apparent
satisfaction, his authoritative assertion
that no such reductions had been made.
Has Mr.. j. w. Jones ceased to be an
authority more trustworthy than the
reports of the Associated Press, the
trade journals and the testimony of the
manufacturers themselves?-New York
Times.