The Guthrie daily leader. [volume] (Guthrie, Okla.) 1893-1996, 1898-10-08
TIE rLN Pile MOIST

There is an outgiving from the
white huse to the effect that nothing
in Mr.. LcKinley's legislative career
gives him SO much qualification as the
success of the provision for the plate
protection in his bill of 1890.
The Chicago Chronicle says that it is
a fact that before the passage OF that
bill very little tin plate was manufac-
tuJed in this country, while at present
the quantity made here is nearly four
times the quantity imported. But il
does not necessarily follow that the
Mckinley bill wrought all this change.
nor does it necessarily follow that il
it did there is anything gratifying
about the change.
The tariff tax on tin plate for a long
tune before the passage Of the McKin-
ley bill was cent per pound. That
oili Increased the iaN to % cents per
pobnd The home manufacture of
tin plate rose faom next TO nothing in
1880 to over l30,0o0,OOO pounds in the
fiscal year ls0l That looks a little as
though the Mckinley bin did it.
But ia 1904 the tariff tax was re-
duced to III cents per pound or only
tr le more than it was before the
passage Of the Mckinley bill. But the
infant tin plate industry was not
killed by the reduction. On the con
trary, it grew more rapidly than be-
fore, the output having been 1873, 500,
900 pounds in 1895, 307, 200, 900 pounds
ia 1855 and fi7, 100000 pounds in
1897, tue last fiscal year under the
tariff Of 1885,
This doesn't look so much as though
the Mckinley bill did IT, 1t looks
very much Of though tia plate might
have been made prohtably before the
Mckinley bin was passed and as
though the increase made by the
Dingley bill last year was wholly I'M
necessary for the preservation and
prosperity Of the industry and mere
gratuity to the tin plate makers al
the expense OF the American public.
But IL we should go so far as to
grant that the establishment and
growth Of the tin plate Industry were
due 10 the Mckinley bin IL would not
necessarily be thing TO be proud Of
1t enabled a few Americans TO make
money by manufacturing tin plate
But it did this only by compelling the
American people to pay higher price,
for that necessary com modify Tax
ing the people heavily on a necessary
article, not to get money for public
use but to put money into private
pockets, is not thing OF which a pro
perly constituted person would brag
No intelligent man denies that an
industry can be made prosperous by
means OF tariff taxes or by means oi
bounties. Free traders do not deny
that protection may protect some few
industries What they deny is thai
protection by duties or bounties is a
good thing for the people, They not
only assert, but they prove, that Ii
does not enrich the people as whole
to take money from some OF them and
bestow il upon others of them. They
not only assert, but they also show
that this process which cannot enrich
the country as a whole is a monstrou,
wrong, because IL necessarily robs the
comparatively poor many 20 increase
the possessions Of the comparatively
rieh few. They object to a system
which gives the masses just cause OF
complaint because it greatly exag
gerates those inequalities Of condition
which are great enough when all en-
JOY the equal favor and protection o,
the laws Ia the accumulation OF this
] worlds goods.