Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1892-09-29
RECORD OF ONE WEEK
NOT A PLEASANT CONTEMPLATION
FOR THE M'KlNLEY lDOLATERS.

and Wages Reduced in Artificially Slim
Condition.
1t is the claim of protectionists-a
ridiculous as it is general-that protec-
ton tariffs tend to destroy monopolies
and trusts, to increase production, to
lower prices and to raise wages. Tariff
reformers take a different view on all
these points and base their opinions less
upon theory and more upon facts They
have recently called the attention of the
country to list of 100 tariff trusts, to a
list of 500 wage reductions in protected
industries since October, 1890, to hun
dreds of articles on which both the duty
and the price have been increased, to
hundreds of mills and factories closed
by these tariff trusts to restrict produc-
ton, anG to numerous other similar facts.
Readers of trade papers come across a
multitude of facts ON the tariff reform
side of this question. Here are few
taken from The Weekly Iron Age of
Aug. 4, 1S92-it should be remembered
that the greatest of all protected indus
tries is that of iron and steel manufac-
ture:
1t publishes hst of eight big iron and steel
combines and of several smaller ones of recent
date. These embrace the manufacture of steel
rails, structural steel, crucible and open hearth
steel, steel billeis, wire rods, wire, wire nails,
boiler and tank plates, armor plates, cut nails,
slabs pig iron. bar iron, etc.
| 1t discusses 1.-THE tactics of the coal COM
| bine," which has advanced prices of anthracite
lz-k Eoxx~x @1.c
| and which will continue to make advances
| from time to time in q sort of arithmeticai
! progression with the apparent If not openly
| avowed design of reaching certain maximum
say S. ton for stove-'before the snow
| fiies.'"
| minous coal, which completes with anthracite,
makes ii easier for the coal companies to reach
| "a certain definite maximum"
| Itsays, 1.-THE latest combine in the mercantile
world is a fur pool with sl0,0000O0 capital in
which nearly all the firms in the trade have
become interested" This is the George w.
| Treadwell trust, which has a monopoly OF the
seal fur industry of Alaska, and also of the
| dyeng of furs, and which can adjust prices in
| this country up to the limits of duty.
| 1t announces firmer and upward prices for
| wire and cut nails and a reduction of to 10 per
| cent. in the scale of wages for wire drawing for
| 1892 and 1885, also that large number Of wire
| and cut nail mills are shut down.
| 1t says, 1.-THE Continental Tube works at
! Frankstown, near Pittsburg, has closed down
| for an indefinite period" because 1.-THE firm did
not feel justified in buying skelp iron in the
open market at the recent advance in prices"
ION account of the depression in the iron
| market, the Isabella Furnace company, oper-
| ating the Isabella furnace at Etna, Pa, has
banked down one stack and will probably bank
| another during the present week"
! "Addyston Pipe works, the largest in the
country, has posted a notice of a shutdown
| for an indefinite period"
1.-THE Dunbar Furnace company, at Dunbar,
Pa, operating the two Dunbar furnaces, closed
them down on Saturday, July 30, for an in
| definite period" closing down due to the
present depression existing in the pig iron
trade"
delphia, has started upon three-fourths ca
pacity after shutdown of three weeks, dur
ing which time the workmen concluded to
make the required concessions" necessary to
| resume work.
Recent advances amounting to So and 81 per
ton have been made in structural steel.
There is a better tone to prices" of barbed
wire and some of the manufacturers have
withdrawn their quotations"
at is estimated that about 1900 men are
now idle, causing some eighty buildings in
course of construction to be TIED up in New
York city.
|
month perceptible increase in prices viii be
noticed" for window glass.
The Iron Age attempts editorially to
explain the grave necessity which exists
for ''the leveling of wages" in the iron
industry. 1t says both prices and wages
have been on an artificial basis, and that
"with the disappearance of artificial
values an artificial standard of wages
also falls"
These items-such as occur every
week give fair idea of industries
propped up by tariff-unsteady and
fiuctuating prices and production, com
binations of capital to restrict produc
ton, raise prices and reduce wages, la
Dor unions to resist the reductions
strikes, boycotts and labor riots-al
paid for in the end by the consumer
who votes to sustain this unnatural ani
unhealthy system of providing for oul
wants.