Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1901-01-25
AS TO THE SUBSIDIES.
Tariff Duties Should Not BE Reduced
When manufacturers Beat
Their Own Country.

Inc people would rather see con.
| gress at work taking away subsidies
than granting them. If the Fifty
sixth congress wishes to end its life
creditably it will repeal the subsidies
enjoyed by Mr.. Carnegie and other
steel and iron plutocrats and by the
men engaged in some other industries,
instead of voting subsidies to steam
ship lines.
Mr. James j. Hill said last Satur-
day:
"If we are to build the ships here, see
| no reason why We need a protective duty
| Of seven dollars ton on plates as long as
| our platemakers are exporting plates to the
| other countries-especially as they are will
| ing to furnish them for export at a lower
price than they do to our own people"
The cheapest steel plates imported
have to pay duty of $6.70 a ton. So
high duty is not necessary for the
protection of American manufacture
ers. During the ten months ending
with October last they shipped to for
eign markets nearly 100000 pounds
of steel sheets and plates. The vital
point is that they sold their plates
more cheaply abroad than at home.
They asked the shipbuilders on the
Clyde, where some of these plates
went, less than they do the American
shipbuilders. This is the policy which
the iron and steel combines follow in
regard to other products, such as
steel rails, billets and wire nails.
If the American shipbuilders could
get steel and iron plates from domestic
manufacturers on as good terms as for
eigners do there would be no question
about the ability of American ship
yards to turn out vessels at lower
cost than foreign competitors. But
the American shipbuilder, like all
other consumers of steel, is at the
mercy of the steel combines. They
have low export price for foreign
ers and high domestic price for
Americans.
An excessive duty which enables a
manufacturer to maintain these two
sets of prices is grant to him OF a
subsidy, the size of which depends up
on his own sweet will. The manufac-
turers Of steel plates can, If they
choose, exact about seven dollars
above fair market price from Amer
lean consumers. 1t is largely because
of these subsidy grants that man
like Mr.. Carnegie has an income OF
s2o,ooo,ooo year.
If subsidies were as odious to con-
gress as they are to the people, it
would investigate this subject careful
1y- md
dustry controlled by men who have
an export and domestic price, the
latter the higher of the two, congress
would revise the tariff duties so as to
take away from the manufacturers in
question their excess of protection
and thus deprive them of the power
to discriminate in prices against their
own countrymen. At this moment
the admitted ability of the United
States to make steel and iron more
cheaply than they can be made abroad
rebounds chiefly to the benefit of for
eign consumers of American iron and
steel.
says t 9hkat isrihR yuufffRgaa vwhe
reduced when a manufacturer has an
export and domestic price, discrim-
mating against his own country, he
may safely be put down as the repre-
sentative of some wealthy corporation,
which will be unable to collect sub
sides if duties are lowered to rea-
sonable figure. The Tribune holds it
to be a self-evident truth that any
manufacturer who has an export and
a domestic price-the former the low
err of the two-is not entitled to tar
if protection. = Chicago Tribune
(Rep)