Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-07-02
TARIFF TRUSTS.
BY Henry w. Lamb.

was completed recently by a collection
OF opinions publicly expressed by emil
nent Republicans, demanding the removal
Of protective duties which foster monop-
oily. It remains only for me to add few
words of comment summing up on behalf
of the New England Free Trade League,
which edited the series.
The writer's of these articles set out to
prove the connection between Protection
and Trusts, rather than to discuss the
whole trust question: and they have
made out clear case, which more gen.
eral discussion has so far been all at
sea, and must remain there until the tar
liz protection of trusts has been removed.
That is the essential first step to be taken
and before we can see how most effect
lively to grapple trusts as trusts we must
get rid of trusts as the beneficiaries of
protection.
These writer's proved in specific cases,
the extortions practiced by trusts whose
products were directly protected by the
tariff, but it was not possible to follow
out all the relations of these trusts to
others. When tariff trusts extort high
and arbitrary prices for galvanized iron,
for steel sheets. hoops or wire, or for tin
plates, those who control the production
of inferior articles which can be substi-
tuted mark up their prices also So long
as protective duties enable those monop-
olies which make machinery and other
finished products to extort their high
prices, they must bear with the extor-
tions of the trusts which control the ma
terials they use. 1t is often in such hid
den corners that the protective tariff be-
he of OF - md
while some of these children of protection
are encouraged to steal by their mother,
others are unwillingly driven into en-
bination in self defense against the IA
vored ones.
In addition to the difficulties arising
from the involved and complicated rela-
tons of tariff trusts, there are the diff
culties of obtaining information. In most
cases those who know either will not tell,
or else try to deceive. In other cases,
however, 1t is possible to secure infor-
nation and fortunately these instances
are of such prominence that they furnish
overwhelming evidence of the extortion
in which the trusts and the protective
tariff are partners. Although it is not
possible, therefore accurately to meas
ure the extent of tariff extortions, any
more than we can measure the danger of
filth and bad drainage to health, it is
plain enough in both cases that the evils
exist and that their prompt removal is
necessary to clear and purify the air.
The statements made In the Leagues
series of letters have already been justi-
fed in so marked a manner that atten-
ton may well be called to one or two
instances. On January 8, 1900, the League
published an article on the American
Steel and Wire Company in which it call
ed attention to the evidence that this
TRUSTS extortionate prices were check
ing industrial enterprises. The letter
closed with this prediction:
But the wage workers will more fully
appreciate the benefits of this trust when
demand for it's product falls off greatly
and when its attempts by closing mills
and restricting production, to maintain
high prices and pay dividends on its
highly diluted stock. Such a time will
surely come"
The time has already come as every in
telligent reader of newspapers knows. In
the middle of April the trust suddenly
announced the closing of twelve mills
whose estimated capacity was 1000 tons
daily, their managing director giving poor
business and accumulated stocks as the
cause. Those interested in other iron
and steel trusts Wed with each other in
denouncing him for what they termed
'reprehensible conduct" Within a week
a meeting of the directors of that COM
pany admitted the truth of his confess
sions by making a cut of about 80 per
cent in the trusts prices on nails and
wire.
While this reduction was enough to bear
out the Leagues demonstration that
Tariff Trust extortions were serius in
jury to business we'll as a burden upon
consumers, it soon received support from
other metal trusts. Quotations on steel
billets, which had dropped from $50 a
ton in November to $33 by April 1st have
since fallen to SIS, while prices of wrought
iron pipe have been reduced at least 25
per cent during the last two months.
In another place the league ridieuled
the claim put forward by protected trusts
that their effect would be "a steadiness
of prices" and the ridcule has been sig
nally justified. The Iron Age said of the
Steel and Wire Trusts cut in prices 1T
is believed to have been the longest hor-
izontal reduction in the history of the
iron trade" But as other steel interests
have since almost matched it. it is evil
dent that in practice the protected trusts
do not result in "a steadness of prices
On the contrary open competition would
tend to steady them and prevent violent
fluctuation
The events which justify the Leagues
position are by no means confined to the
iron and steel trusts. The lead trust has
reduced its price on pig lead by sudden
and arbitrary drops. 1t was $475 per 100
lbs on May 4th. Then days later it was
S405 and early in June it fell to 1918
The protective tariff. which excludes for
egn lead enabled the lead trust to ex-
tort such a price as s4.75 and prevented
the competition which would have regu-
lated the price naturally.
But all these reductions, however tardy
or violent. at least tend to relieve the
people from extortion and to remove the
cloak under which other trusts are hid
ing. 1t is no longer possible to maintain
that the high prices of sheet steel and
galvanized iron and tin plate are iusti-
fed by the prices of materials, a pretence
which has deceived many who really had
no excuse for not knowing better The
League exposed this pretence months ago
and now the fall in steel prices sweeps
it entirely away; but though the market
rrirn of fhe en- in, 1nn The