The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-02-12
PAYS THE TARIFF.

FOREIGNER PAYS lHE iAniFFs
The Trade OF Fallacy Exposed-BrRdford
Manufacturers Pay the Duty by Reducing
Their Selling Price-The Tariff Does Not
Increase the Cost to the Consumer, but
Decreases Foreign 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
worsteds now pending before the
United States board of general ap-
praisers does not seem to justify so
broad claim
At present the Bradford manufac-
turers can either shut down their mills,
or offer goods in this market at such a
price, duty paid, that they can compete
with the American mills. The lines are
undoubtedly hard for the Bradford peo-
pie, but they have no other recourse.
as nowhere else in the world can they
find customers wealthy enough to take
their product at any price, consequent
ly several hundred invoices were lately
presented at our custom houses that
were thought to put the value OF goods
below the actual cost of their manu-
facture, and the value was raised. On
an average, 12}1 per cent; for, though
the duty has been raised 30 per cent
the goods las stated by the bulletin of
the wool manufacturers are still sold
here at the old prices, although there
has been no material reduction in the
cost of labor in Bradford. and but slight
reduction in the cost of the raw ma
teriaL"
As this increased valuation carried
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 affijavits were indorsed subSe-
quently by Udited States Consul Tib-
bets at Bradford, who examined the
books of many Bradford manufacturing
firms. Proving conclusively (if there
has been no perjury that the tariff on
worsteds had merely resulted in de-
creased profits to British naanufactnr-
ers, and not in increased costs to Amer
can consumers. The advantage of pro
lection to American manufacturers, In
this instance. has been the profits o.
Bradford manufacturers are now prob
ably at about bed rock figures, and
they can not cut so per cent off their
present prices for the sake of closing
our wooden mills. .---
This practice, by British manufactur-
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 II per cent ad valorem,
had been raised by 1866 to specific
duty OF 20 to 3 cents per pound To
this was added an ad valorem duty in
some instances. This resulted, accord
ing to report by DR.. David A Wells,
made in 1861 (he had not been in Eng
land them:
That since the introduction Of the manufact-
ure of these grades Of steel in the United
States or since 1883, the price OF foreign steel
of similar qualities has been very considerably
reduced through the effect Of the American COM
petition, and that the whole country in this
way has gained more than sufficient to counter
balance 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
undervaluations. 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:
We have a very large steel trade in America,
amounting TO q large proportion OF our whole
business and in that market there IS from
various circumstances much competition, and
these two causes-large trade and competition
combined-have induced Us 20 be satisfied with
a smaller average profit there than we have
realized on the average in our other markets