The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-04-12
HURTING TRAos.
injury Done to Our Industries by Chang
Ing the Tariff.

Ing the Tariff.
Two causes of apprehension in the
textile manufactures are mentioned by
trade journals, the frequency Of
strikes, particularly in wooden mills,
and the frequency and Importance of
cancellations. Both are evidences of
the incalculable injury done by the
change in the tariff. 1t is important to
understand these movements, because
they show the working of causes not
by any means confined to textile es-
adjustments.
The cancellations are partly unwar-
rsnted and essentially dishonorable.
Having given orders to domestic man
ufacturers some months ago, in order
to secure the goods they expected to
need. some buyers now cancel these
orders and refuse 70 take the goods be-
cause they find that they can buy at
less cost similar foreign goods, which,
though not of as good quality, may
nevertheless be made up and sold as
readily. so that the consumer will be
defrauded. This lis one side of the
case, and the large importations of
goods, mainly composed of shoddy,
which are so destitute of wearing quail
tiles that it is often easy to put the
finger through them, show plainly
enough what sort of stuff some cloth
iers are preferring. But on the other
side there is a desperate effort made
by some of the manufacturers to rival
the shoGGy users of Europe in their
own field in order to produce goods
here as cheaply as those offered by for
eign makers. Beyond question some
makers have been turning out poorer
goods than they ever sold before, only
because they have been forced to make
such goods or lose their home market.
Thus the consumer is robbed both
ways, getting poorer stuff for his
money when he buys such American
goods as have deteriorated in quality.
or such foreign goods as are sent here
to capture this market.
The trouble about wages springs
from the general impression among
employees that when manufacturers get
orders they get profits. But in times
like these That is by no means true.
Very often manufacturer has orders
that only suffice to keep his mills at
work part time. which, owing to the
increased cost Of production under
such circumstances, he cannot take
without loss. unless he can somehow
contrive to keep the works fully en-
ployed. With that object. and in or
der to retain his market as far as pos
sible, he accepts enough other orders
to keep his works employed, though
these other orders may not by them
selves yield anything but loss. The
average for the whole output, he calcu-
lates, may yield something above bare
cost, with labor at the rate recently
prevailing. But when the hands de-
mand a restoration of wages to the
rates paid before the prostration. the
naked question for the manufacturer is
whether he shall run his mills at a GER
tain and often large loss or not run
them at all.
The wages and prices prevailing two
and three years ago were so closely ad-
justed TO each other that only mOder-
ate profits were realized in well-man-
aREu anu SUCCESSFUL HILLS. InC
competition was so sharp and severe
that works which were not well man.
aged rarely realized any profit, and
large-number of them were forced into
bankruptcy or compelled to stop, even
in those years of prosperity. The cost
of wood in the manufacture is, on the
whole, less than thirty per cent. of the
cost OF goods, so that the cheapness of
the material by no means compensates,
as to a great number of products in gen
eral use for the decline which foreign
competition and the undervaluatiOns
of foreign goods make necessary. 1t is
the unwelcOme fact that a large pro-
portion of the mills now at work would
be forced to stop, and the operatives
would have no wages whatever, if
they SHOULD refuse to work at materi-
ally lower wages than were paid under
the former protective duties.-N. y.
Tribune.