Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1892-09-08
PROTECTION IN PRACTICE.
The Tariff on Steel Rails Has ENABLED
the Makers to Fix the Price.

The Tariff Steel Rails Has Enabled
the Makers to Fix the Price.
The Engineering and Mining Journal
gives an exceedingly valuable illustra-
ton of the manner in which protec-
tive tariff raises it's benefciaries above
the operations of the natural law of
trade.
The illustration concerns steel rails,
which are now 81 a ton higher than they
were in 1886, although the cost of pro-
duction and the tariff tax are less and
the demand is slight. The command
of the market, by reason of the tariff
on rails and the ownership of the Besse-
mer patents, has enabled the railmakers
to fix arbitrarily the price of their prod
ucts.
The American manufacturers make
much of the fact that improved ma
chinery has greatly increased their out
put, and The Journal estimates that the
cost of producing steel rails, when the
manufacturer makes his own pig, can
not exceed 500 ton. In 1886 steel rails
sold at S26 a ton, and the cost Of Besse-
mer pig alone was SIG. At $50 ton
the profits on the annual output Of steel
rails is necessarily between $10,000,00O
and $12, 100000.
That the protective tariff gives this
enormous dividend to the makers, who
instead of increasing wages are trying
to cut them down, is shown by an ex-
animation of English prices. In May.
1892, English rails sold for 1914. The
duty on this, 1874, would make their
price $32. SS, not counting freight and in
surance. 1t is clear therefore that $50
is the price at WHICH the English rails
can be kept out. While the English
price has fallen since 1885 from 1928. II q
ton to 1914, the price of English pig
has risen from $1,000 ton to $12.15
In other words, the English maker
pays SLAB more for his pig and gets
1878 less for his rails. At the same
time, while the price of American rails
advanced from $26 to $50 ton, the
price of American pig fell from ST. to
S14 a ton, so that the American maker
paid So less for his pig and got 81 more
for his product.
This gain he keeps for himself.-New
York World.
A Pauper Industry.
The tariff of 1890 deals out govern
ment licenses to its favorites to take
that which is not their own, against the
protest of other industries demanding
the right to keep what they have earned,
and strife is thus inaugurated between
domestic industries more subverting to
general prosperity than any possible en-
croachment of foreigners.
The contest which ended in the in
creased duty on timed plate was a
novel interference with 5000 selfsup-
porting established industries built up
by the use of cheap timed plate as their
raw material in order to favor an in
dustry non-selfsupporting, and which
very fact was urged as an excuse why
public charity should be extended
toward it.
The government in thus granting
privileges to certain industries, at the
expense of others, is encouraging prec-
edent which, in its simplest definition,
means robbery, and which in its results
involves burdening the people to natural
ize pauper industry at the blatant APP
peal of those whose sole object was to
profit by selling supplies to the indus
trial poorbouse thus set up.