The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1897-06-30
TRUSTS AND PROTECTION.
vagaries Of the Calamitous Free
Trade HOwIers.

| Trnue hOWiers.
AS was to be expected, when the
sugar schedule was under considera-
ton in the senate few days ago, the
great and omnipresent question of
trusts and monopolies came in for VEN
tilation and attack. Senator Petit
| grew, of South Dakota, was loaded for
bear of the biggest kind, and he dis
charged himself upon the whole mon
strous brood of gigantic trusts and
combines. He had collected with a
good deal of labor and more or less
care, mass of figures relating to the
chief of the American trusts, some
pertinent and some impertinent, which
he fired in one deadly discharge at the
tariff bill.
But il was at the sugar trust that
his figures and his arguments were prin-
cipally aimed. Senators Tillman, of
South Carolina, and Lindsay, of Ken
lucky, also joined in the assault. Nei-
Their the sugar trust nor any other
great trust has many friends among
the people. There is AM impression
abroad that they destroy competition;
that they control output and prices of
commodities; that they make great and
illegitimate profits, which come, of
course, out of the pockets of the con-
sumers. But the contention of Mr..
Pettigrew and those who talk and act
with him is that the growth of trusts
is fostered and increased by protec-
ton; and he therefore proposed by the
amendment which he offered to the
sugar schedule, that whenever it
should appear that said article or ar
ticles of like character of domestic
production are manufactured or their
sale controlled or their prices affected
by a trust or combination TO increase
the cost of such articles, etc., any
citizen of the United States may file
his petition in any district court of
the United States, and thereon have it
adjudicated that any product is con-
trolled or its price affected by trust,
and thereupon the court shall issue
mandate to the customs officials of the
United States to permit the importa-
ton of such articles free of duty.
Senator Hoar denounced the proposed
amendment as folly and abomina-
ton through and through" He pointed
out how such an amendment would
put it in the power of any three men
to form a combination to affect prices
of some article, and then get some citi-
zen to file his petition in the court,
and secure an order to place such ar
ticle on the free list. Mr.. Pettigrew
refused, on the appeal of Senator Alli-
son, to withdraw the amendment, and
thereupon, by vote of 35 to 80, it was
laid upon the table.
The fundamental error made in this
case is that trusts and combines are
dependent upon tariff. Trusts spring
up in free trade countries as well as
in protection countries. Take two of
our American trusts, for eXample-the
American Cotton Oil company and the
Standard Oil company. Both these
products are largely exported from
this country, and as to them the tariff
is nugatory; and yet they are among
the most powerful of all the trusts in
controlling prices and fixing profits.
AS to the sugar trust-or the Ameri-
can Sugar Refining company, as it is
properly named-the only question is
whether it is best to refine the 100000
tons of sugar which we import here in
the United States or to havei it refined
for us abroad by foreign capital and
foreign labor. If the differential be-
tween raw and refined sugars, which
constitutes the protection to the REIN
ing industry and' keeps it, in the coun-
try. is too great. then by all means let
it be reduced But we do not believe
in deceving the people or in exciting
their anger or their prejudice by false
statements in regard to the matter.
The whole debate on the part of the
opponents of the sugar trust has pro-
ceeded upon the assumption that the
sugar schedule increases the differen-
tial on refined sugar. But, on the con-
trary, if the tables printed in the Rec
ord by Senator Allison can be trusted.
the differential on all sugars testing
IS degrees and upward is actually less
than under the existing Wilson-Gor-
man law. by an unskillful arrange
ment the house bill, gave. a, compare
lively low differential on low grade
sugars, and thus discouraged the pro-
6uction of beet sugars in this country.
and a destructively low rate on refined
sugars. which would drive refining be-
yond the seas.
This will be one of the problems for
the conference committee to settle. But
il should be settled in accordance with
reason and not by prejudice.-Detroit
Journal.
Tariffs Do Not Affect Trusts.