The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-08-02
YET TO BE LEARNED.
The Actual Consequences of Democratic
Tariff Tinkering Are to Come.

Tariff Tinkering Are to Come.
Our democratic friends are growing
fond of the assertion that importations
of manufactured products are not as
large a. in some prosperous months
under the republican duties, and that
their new tariff has therefore done no
harm. 1t is curious to see them defend
tariff which was avowedly intended
to break down protection on the ground
that it has not broken down protection
That this is in large measure true,
that the tariff finally passed by barter
with the sugar and whisky and other
monopOlies did in almost every particu-
AR contemptuously disregard and vio-
late the principles which the demo-
Gratis had professed to hold sacred and
pledged themselves to carry into effect,
everybody knows who is capable OF an
opinion on the subject But it does
not follow that the changes made have
done or will do no harm.
A single case may be taken as illus
trating many. The democrats who
rashly asserted in October. 1892, and
even later, that there was not a single
mill in the country actually making
tin plates, were by no means disposed to
have any such mill left in the country to
convince them of persistent lying any
longer than they could prevent it. I'm
deniably their reduction of the duty to
the old rate of LIZ cent per pound,
under which for many years it had
been found impossible to establish or
maintain tin plate production here,
was intended and expected to stop that
production, and we have yet to see
whether it will or not. But until re-
Gently the manufacture here has been
sheltered by the unprecedented cheap
ness of the materials, Bessemer
steel and fuel, and by lower wages
than had been known in the country
for many years. These things kept the
tin plate manufacturers from destruc-
ton, although the shipments from
Great Britain to this country in May
were over a sixth larger than last
year, and in five months ending with
May over an eighth larger.
But it was not to be expected, nor
by any patriotic man was it desired,
that the wages of iron and coal miners,
transporters and furnace hands, should
continue as low as they had to be
in order to make $40 Bessemer
pig a possibility. In time the
mine owners, coke workers and fur
mace men began to restore wages in
part. Then Bessemer pig rose, and,
instead of $40 in March, it has reached
Sl9 per ton. The necessary advance in
the cost of Bessemer billets, tin plate
bars and black sheets and in The
wages of workers all around has now
gone so far that the plates can actually
be imported little more cheaply than
they can be made here, and if this
state of things continues the industry
with many thousand men is doomed.
Possibly foreign prices may also rise
some; possibly the withdrawal of an
important demand for plates and for
Bessemer steel may compel lower
prices here, even if at the expense of
reduced wages again. 1t is yet impos-
sible to say what the effect of the
new duties has been, because the ex-
pectation of democratic tariff had put
down wages and prices so far, in almost
every department, that any revival of
business whatever necessarily involved
some advance.
A similar experience is possible in
branches of the wooden trade. So long
as American wool was cheaper, shrink
age and quality considered, than the
wool available for manufacture in
other countries, and SO long as wooden
workers here were willing to go along
at the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS wages
paid in expectation of a democratic
tariff, the domestic makers could bare
~ hold their own against competition,
although foreign importatiOns enor-
mously increased-from 5,516, leo yards
of worsteds in five months of 1894 to
20, s27, 500 in five months of 1895. But
now wool has gone up about 2 cents
for some kinds, and it becomes a ques-
ton whether the manufacture in GER
tain branches can continue. The re-
suits of democratic tariff tinkering are
not yet known, but enough is known
of them to make it clear that great in
dustries of the country are now ex-
posed to dangers against which, for
many years under republican protec-
ton, they were entirely tree.-N. Y.
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