Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-03-12
CHEMICAL AND OTHER TRUSTS.

In the letter on chemical trusts III
another column. it is stated that the
wood alcohol trust is charging Ameri-
can consumers nearly twice what IL
charges foreign consumers. This is
enc of the beauties Of our high tarlf
duties. We have referred to many SIM
liar ones. The Register some time
ago published the export and home
market" prices Of barbed wire charsed
by the steel and wire trust. The New
York prices to New Workers was then
81 10 PERI hundred pounds; while the
New York price to foreigners was only
1920 per hundred pounds. On this
subject, the New York Journal of
March contains a letter dated City
Of Mexico, February % 1900. The
writer says:
II have been shown goods here which
the trusts have sold to Europe, and there
again sold to Mexico for less than any
New York jobber can get the same goods
from the trusts who manufacture them.
There are American manufactur-
ers who 1 know are obliged TO pay trust
prices, and be careful to keep quiet or be
cut off by the industrial barons. and this
would mean to buy their raw or partly
manufactured material abroad, where
original prices are below trust prices, but
the United States tariff puts them in the
power of trusts"
The writer gives an illustration:
"A party here accepted the price offered
by the American Steel & Wire company.
and ordered the goods shipped via Eagle
Pass. The American Steel & Wire Com
pany replied that IL the wire was shipped
VIA Eagle Pass the price was $l.65 more
than II via Ward & Co. steamship Com
pany. New York. and in explanation of
this said that the Mexican price was sl.65
less than the American price. and that in
their experience they found that goods
ordered via Eagle Pass were stopped at
the border and shipped back into the Unit
ed States and sold. which made AN unfair
competition with their prices That is to
say, that every American farmer or dealer
who buys the goods of this trust pays
direct tax to the trust. Regarding
glass, and a host of other trust products.
the facts here all show the same state of
affairs"
The writer asks: as this legal con-
stitutional or tolerable? How long
will the American people tolerate this
assumption of taxing power?"
In this letter Mr.. Holt also deals
with the paris green trust, one of the
most novel ones yet exposed. 1t ap-
pears little ahead of the potato-bug
season and disappears shorty after the
potato crop is assured 1t does lot
appear every year, but appears much
oftener than the seyenteen-year 10
Gusts. 1t is also greater pest when
1t does appear. In 1894 it put prices
Up from 10 cents, in March to % cents
per pound, in May. Unfortunately for
the trust, the tariff schedules were
then being revised, and some of the
curses of the farmers reached the ears
OF Congress. The duty on paris
green was cut down from rs to 1919
per cent, and the extent to which the
trust can safely raise prices has since
been more limited. Owing however,
to peculiar conditions, partly ex-
planned by Mr.. Holt in his letter, the
comparatively small duty (raised to Is
per cent by Dingley) serves to keep
cut foreign paris green until it is TOO
late to import and take advantage of
the sudden high price which the trust,
about twice every three years, springs
upon the trade. But for this duty i'm
porters would carry large supplies,
and would arrange to fill orders
promptly. Doubtless the potato-bugs
bless this trust and the tariff which
enables it to make it expensive for
farmers to protect their potato plants.