Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-12-18
Imports Iron Ore.

The high price for ore in 1899 will
probably result in the importation of
millions of tons of ore next year. Thus
the Iron Age of November 80 says that
Pulling & Crane, of Philadelphia, have,
during the past week, sold for spring
delivery between 175,000 and 1000 0
tons OF Newfoundland ore to nine diff
ferent concerns in Eastern P~ennsylva-
MA" But whatever the price of this
imported GRE in the open market our
consumers must pay 40 cents a ton duty
! in addition to that price. This reduces
! by 40 cents the force of the competi-
ton which the trust ought to be obliged
to meet, and therefore enables the trust
to extort 40 cents a ton more for its
ore than it could extort if it were not
for the tariff. But little ore is now
brought across Lake Superior from
the Canadian side; the removal Of the
duty would probably result in extensive
competition from this quarter and at
ford some relief from the exactions of
the trust.
But the district which now suffers
the most from the duty on ore because
the duty bars its only avenue of es-
cape from the trust, is the eastern Sec
ton of the United States. This Sec
ton produces considerable non-Besse-
mer iron and needs only large supplies
OF cheap Bessemer ore to enable it to
make Bessemer steel. AS early as 1890
| Major l.. S. Bent, President of the
Pennsylvania Steel Company, said TO
the House Ways and Means Commit
tee: "Give me free ore and | will sell
pig iron in Liverpool and send steel
rails to London"
Because OF the duty the mills of the
Pennsylvania Steel Company at Steel
ton, Pa, and at Sparrows' Point. Mary
land, have been idle much the time
during the last eight years, While many
eastern mills have been permanently
closed and the iron and steel industry
of New England has become almost
extinct. Without tariff restrictions
iron and soft coal would be as cheap
in Boston as in P%ittsburg. With tariff
restrictions New England's iron and
steel industry exist only by consent of
the iron and coal trusts Of Pennsylva-
MIA and the lake district. These trusts
have always insisted that tariff duties
should be retained.
1t is evident that while the removal
of the duty on iron ore might not kill
the ore trust it would at least cripple
it somewhat and prevent it from ex-
torting quite such excessive prices from
all sections of the country. As in the
cases of so many other trusts it is clear
that the first step in their treatment
should be the removal of tariff duties.
This would clear the way and would
show how much of the trust evil was
tariff and how much something else,
which would require different treat
ment.
In view Of the monopoly uses which
the various iron and other trusts are
making of the tariff there is good rea-
son why all duties on products con
trolled by trusts should be repealed.
| Delay in taking the duties off simply
encourages trusts and ~monopolies. him
ders the development of all industry
and prevents the just distribution of
products-which is the best guarantee
of a stable government.
It is fair to assume that trusts will
| never be suppressed by statute law. The
effective remedy for trusts and their
evils must lie in the removal of the
conditions that create and foster trusts.
These conditions are the result of Pc
cial laws and can be changed only by
repeating special laws. One of these
special laws gives us our tariff system,
| which, il II is not the mother of trusts,
certainly fosters and protects them.
Had tariff duties been abolished TWEEN
ty years ago, we should not now have
as many trusts and most Of those form
| ed would be innocent affairs incapable
| of fixing prices at ~exorbitant figures.
BOLTON HALL.