The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1898-06-01
OUR IRON INDUSTRY.
PROJECTIONS UTILITY ILLUSTRATED
By ITS GROWTH.


err Iron and More Of IL Than England
Has Ever Made Cost of Manufacture
Has Steadily Decreased.
Ten years ago, during the fiscal year
ending June 30. 1888, the value of do
nestle manufactures exported from the
United States was : 1 30. 800, 600, and for
the calendar year ending Dec. 81 last
the value of such exports had risen to
$a79, 6l7,00O A great many things
have happened during the ten interven-
ing years
We have had the Mckinley tariff, al
so that tariff of perfidy and dishonor,
in that IL was so amended in the senate
as to do less damage to American inter
ests than Professor Wilson intended,
and now we have the Dingley tariff.
From 1889 to 1891 the country was
more prosperous than at any other time
and than any other country. In tho
spring of 1898 Cleveland and Carlisle
took hold Of the country's finances and
successfully steered them to the mem
orable panic of that year, and under
Wilson's direction of the tariff we gain
ed a great deal of experience, while for
eign countries gained our money.
During the summer Of 1895 the GER
tainty of McKinley's election, with the
hope Of legislation in favor of American
interests, started this country on al era
of prosperity, though, unless our present
troubles develop into war, it will be
some years before labor receives the net
reward it did in 1901.
For the past two years our rapidly
increasing exports, as compared with
the marked decreases from 1891 to
1895, have given constant trouble to
those among US who have maintained
in effect that to have large commerce
it was necessary TO sell in the cheapest
markets and buy IL the dearest. Now
that the value of our manufactured
goods exported has reached to nearly
$3.50, 600, 900, it has become necessary
to either enlighten or befog the minds
of adherents TO the Manchester theory
of political economy.
It was with this view that one of our
esteemed contemporaries called its read
ers' attention TO the great increase In
value OF manufactures exported, and
after admitting freely that iron and
steel, including its finished products,
of manufactured goods, equaling over
S62, 700, 900 in values, exclaims:
Even Mr.. Dingley when he was i'm
posing the highest rates suggested on
everything in the import schedule did
not propose to change the duty on pig
iron, striking proof of its decayed util-
ity as protection.
Now our great production of pig iron,
which for four years since 1889 has ex-
ceeded 5000, 900 tons, while Great
Britain has exceeded s, 900, 900 tons dur
ing only three years in that time, has
been reached only by protection. For a
short time before 1850, when Darby
succeeded in smelling iron with coke,
England was willing we should make
pig iron, but not manufacture it, so as
to save her forests that were being de-
stroyed to make charcoal. But with
that exception she has fought our iron
industry as hard as she has fought our
shipping interests, but, fortunately, not
so successfully.
In 1890 we made 9, 202, 703 gross tons
OF pig iron to Great Britain's 1875. 100
tons, and we have exceeded her produc-
ton every year since, except In 1894,
when she made 707, 357 tens more than
we, our production having fallen to a
little over 6, 800, 900 tons. Last year we
made 1859, $50 tons to $3.50, 455 in
Great Britain.
However much free traders may as
sert that other principles govern pro-
tectionists protectionists have always
claimed that an intelligent and persist
ent application of protection would in
crease the production of the protected
goods and decrease the cost. This, as
shown by the New York Evening Post
in the article quoted from, has been ac-
complished. We are making more iron,
we are making better iron and we are
making cheaper iron than England has
ever made. And we are doing it because
the duty for some years was 50 per ton,
which is near the average value of all
the iron made in the United States dur
ing 1897.
These duties have enabled American
manufacturers, as pointed out by the
London Economist, TO make liberal ex-
penditures on new machinery and keep
their works more nearly up to date than
the old fashioned works of England.
And when the American people remem-
Der how thoroughly misleading the as
sertions of The Post were about tin
plate they will probably be satisfied
with out "Chinese wall, )" however
much it may decrease British profits.
na6