The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-01-14
THE LUMBER TARIFF.
A Prominent Lumbernlan Who On
poses a Restoration of the Import
nutV


Duty.
The following letter is copied from the Wi
mona Republican of recent date
In the Republican of Wednesday evening
under the heading Lumber LOSSES" YOU
epitomize a statement made by the Chicago
Inter-Ocean showing the amount received by
the treasury from the duty on lumber for
the three years under the Mckinley tariff and
three under the Wilson tariff. The highest
duty collected under the Mckinley tariff was
~, 437, $780, The lowest duty, that of 1896 under
the Wilson tariff was SIP 469. Taking the
average for three years you show an annual
loss to the treasury Of ,O29 under the
Wilson bill.
Will you kindly lend me space to tell more
Of this interesting story? The lumber manu-
facturers held a convention in Cincinnati to
bring pressure to bear upon congress to re-
store the duty on lumber to $500 per NJ. it
was before the passage of the Mckinley bill.
They urged that because of the removal of
that duty, the price has declined by that
amount and that a restoration of the duty
would give to the manufacturers increased
price for their product equal to the amount
of the duty The same thing was claimed
before the committee of ways and means
by the delegation of lumbermen that was
sent from lumbermans convention in Min
neapols.
The lumber manufactured in 1894 from
stumpage grown in Minnesota and Wiscon-
sin was 8 1874 900 900 feet. l have no report
of later date. If, as is claimed by those
who are asking for the restoration of this
to the amount imposed if the Mckinley bill
had been operative in 1884, the manufact-
urers of stumpage from the two states above
named would have eXtorted a tax from the
consumers Of their product, they had
hitherto under the Mckinley bill, of SO, 1924, 600
While, if the duty of 81 per thousand is i'm
posed, as is now asked for and will be con-
coded, assuming that there will be no in
crease in the product, the annual tax that
lumber manufacturers within this restricted
area can impose for their exclusive benefit
IhTNnn Of fhnir n1rroF l.
81, Gas 900. Admitting for moment that the
amount realized from the collection of duty
for the benefit of the treasury would reach
the highest amount realized from the Nc
KinIey tariff, viz, 81, 437 $780, yet for every
dollar paid into the treasury the consum--
ers of lumber pay So as a tax to the man
ufacturer. 1t must be borne in mind, how
ever, that the importat1ons under which the
treasury realized this large sum was under
81 duty while now it is proposed to make
the duty 81 for the avowed purpose of MAX
ing 1t so large to be practically prohibi-
tory. So that if this scheme is realized, the
treasury gets q mere pittance and all the
duty goes from the pocket of the consumer
to the pocket Of the manufacturer.
In view of these facts what becomes of the
shallow pretense that the, tariff is to be
vised in the interest Of reyenue-that is to
say, revenue for the support. of government?
1t is most emphatically for revenue but it
is revenue for the protection spectator.
Of course, the article / am noticing pre-
senting this question from the protectionist
NStAAPtSSO
apostrophe to the dignity of American labor
and the degradation of being compelled to
compete in the matter of wage with low
down Cannucks. l will not infiict upon your
readers insult their intelligence with
statistics in contradiction of this ridiculous
assumption. A brief statement of the facts
annihilates 1t. Should they be told that
wages in the pineries on the Chippewa were
higher than on the St. Croix and that the
mills manufacturing the respective products
maintained the same discrimination as to
bp state Mt m he
a fabrication, because the st. Crcix employee
would walk over to the Chippewa and avail
himself 1dRa of the better market for his
ployer must pay the market
price suspend operations. Now rs per cent
Of the labor employed in the lumber business
eign. 1t is made up of Swedes, Norwegians,
Germans, Poles, Irish and Italians. The price
paid for labor is public and the men employed
in one locality know what is paid in every
other. dollar for railroad fare or a days
walk will take a Canadian 1aborer to an
American camp. Let it not be forgotten that
tected manufacturer Is too shrewd to allow
any embargo here. The word free trade
gives him spasms, except when it is applied
to the importation of labor when he is at
This brief statement furnishes the key to
the policy OF the next administration. Under
the pretext OF raising revenue, taxes are to
be levied through duties for the benefit Of
manufacturers; while for most of them there
is no more justification than in the case of
lumber.
The lumbermen's convention in Cincinnati
represented by delegates from all over
the South, who claimed that they were as
much interested in a tariff on lumber as the
manufacturers from any part of the country,
and that their profits were increased or di-
minished by the tariff just imposed. The
same claim is made by the lumber manu-
facturers on the Pacific coast. If this is
true the estimate made above does not meas
ure the cost of protection to lumber to the
consumers in this country. The aggregate
consumption in the whole United States is not
less than Is coo, 600 600 feet, which means a
tax under 81 per thousand tariff of $50, 900 900
annually that the consumers of lumber pay
directly into the plethoric pockets of the
lumber manufacturers. How do my farmer
friends, who are the largest consumers of
lumber of any class, enjoy the outlook?
Earle S. Youmans.