New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1893-12-13

something more satisfactory Tor their
meals. Il.
Here are the iron workers, about $780,
900 strong. Part Of them are getting
out ore; he makes ore free, and they are
discharged. Part are making pig iron,
and he puts the duty at $l.5O per ton to
1926 per ton, so that Scotch iron can he
imported here in unlimited quantities at
lever prices than similar grades Of Am
erican iron selling even at the unprecen-
dented prices now prevailing. 1t is evi-
dent that part of the ore producers, and
part of the pig iron producers, must
stand idle, earning nothing, in order that
the rest may have their material cheaper.
The theory is that the rest will do bet
ter, but what are the facts? Beginning
with steel rails, these can be shipped
from Middleboro at $1S ton, and how
much less itisimpossible to state, because
nobody can say what sellers will swear
as to the value Of the rails they have
sold. In this country, after great de-
preston, rails are now selling at $24 per
ton. 1t may be granted that the COM
bination has been of no benefit to Amer
lean industry, but of no great
harm to its development and defence.
But the worker would suffer from de-
preston and he only. Mr.. Carnegie and
the Illinois Company arc paying the
Pennsylvania and the Maryland concerns
to lie idle. Nobody pays the hands for
lying idle. Mr.. Wilson takes wages from
them and they get nothing. Cheaper
rails for the seaboard may result perhaps,
but what more?
Back comes the question to the iron
producers, for what are other miners and
furnace-owners of New York and New
Jersey, Virginia and WestVirginia going
to do, with foreign iron offered at their
doors for less than present panic prices
and with the mills closed at the East
which manufacture such iron! With
round iron 80 per cent, now fifty per
cent; with beams 35 per cent, now 6S
per cent; with boiler iron 80 per cent,
now 45 to SO per cent; with forged iron
30 per cent, now so per cent; with cot
ton ties, in which greet industry has
been built up, now Al per cent, made
free contrary to all regard for theories or
revenue either, in obedience to section
al demand; with tin plates, in which
many new establishments have been en-
ployed, put at 25 per cent instead of 70
per cent, and with steel ingots at 25 in
stead of 45 per cent, what is this manu-
tacture to do? Does anybody need to
be told that great proportion Of the
iron manufacturing works must close,
and that a hundred thousand of more of
the hands must be thrown out of en-
ployment with no hope of return?
The situation evidently means the per-
manent stoppage of more than half the
works in the country. Instead of $780,
900 persons employed there may posi-
bly, be employed at the most 175,O00.
The loss of wages for these alone would
be about $75, 100000. If not more than
40 per cent be taken from the wages of
the rest, to enable them to compete with
foreign producers, the difference would
be $30,0O0,000, so that in all $1O5,OOO,-
600 would be taken from the amount
which the iron workers are able to ex-
penu in year. It is not an encourag
ing fact for other industries which can
hardly thrive when the iron industry is
reduced to part time and short wages.
Yet this is called revenue tariff. Who
are to buy the products of foreign mills,
American industries and American con-
sumers beng thus crippled? Within the
last half-year the demand fer iron has
been reduced nearly 60 per cent because
the people had stopped buying. Are we
to expect that the demand will be grea-
ter, with the mills permanently closed
which would ordinarily employ 175,000
hands? Is there larger revenue t' be
raised by cutting offhalf the buyingpoW-
er Of American consumers! ....: = 1..#
IL Hit and Miss
Y hat will Charlie Heideman do now
in his political speeches, | wonder. How
he, used to plead, as it were, with the
notes Of the dying swan, against that
feature of the Republican tariff bill per-
mitting diamonds to be imported with
out duty And what sever castigations
he heaped upon US Republicans for sup