Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1901-05-10
BRATTLEBORO, FRIDAY, MAY 10. 1901.
Tariffs and Trusts.

| taflH duties on iron, steel and other
metals, the manufacture of which is
now controlled by trusts. Mr.. Bah
cock has recently returned to Wash
ington after an extended trip through
the West, during which he informed
himself as to the attitude of the peo-
pie of that section toward his bill. He
is reported as saying that the PROPOSE
tion to remove duties on such articles,
iron and steel included, as can be
manufactured more cheaply here than
abroad, is favorably received by the
! people of the West, and he will there
fore earnestly advocate the passage
of his bill in the next Congress. Mr..
Babcock is a native Vermonter, born
in Swanton. His sterling Republi-
canism cannot be questioned. He was
chairman of the national Republican
! Congressional committee in the cam
! paigns of 1894. 1896, 1898 and 1900.
and was a leading member of the ways
and means committee in the last Con
gress.
The general principle on which Mr.
Babcock proceeds is that when any
! protected article or industry has
| reached such stage of successful de
velopment that it is able to control
the home market, and to sell it's goods
abroad in successful competition with
foreign manufacturers, then. for the
benefit of our own people and as
protection against the eXtortion of the
trusts, the duties should either be re
moved wholly, or in such part as will
prevent eXtortiOnate monopoly.
1t is pointed out that by the terms
of the national Republican platform
this is good Republican doctrine.
While expressing renewed faith in the
policy of protection of American la
Dor, the platform of 1900 condemned
all conspiracies and combinations in
tended to restrict business, to create
monopolies or to control prices, and
favored such legislation as will effec-
lively restrain and prevent such
abuses, protect and promote com
petition and secure the rights of pro
ducers, laborers and all who are en-
SbSth III luuuShN anu commerce..
The Hartford Courant, one of the
stanchest of Republican papers. in re-
ferring to this general subject within
few days, remarks that "protec-
tive tariffs are a means to an end.
and that when a protected interest
reaches such prosperity and growth
as to build up a trust and control
the markets of the country, then pro-
lection has done its work and should
be removed from that particular indus
try. The purpose of protection is to
enable an industry to establish itself
so that it can get along without pro
lection. There is no question that
establishing a trust to control the
whole country is evidence conclusive
that the infant industry stage has
passed"
There can be no doubt that it is
along these lines that the best SEN
timent of the country will formulate
itself in the matter of the trusts and
their aggressions. II is to be hoped
that the day will come, when. as Vice
before the Home Market club in Bos-
ton last week, the tariff shall be
treated less as matter for party
controversy than for scientific dis
cussion and administrative applica-
tion-in other words shall be treated
simply from the business standpoint"
Until that time comes we believe that
the Republican party must meet the
question on the general lines here in
dicated.
What protection can do in establish
ing home industry has never been
so well illustrated as in the case of'the
manufacture of tin plate. When it
was first proposed to establish the
tin plate industry in this country by
giving the manufacturers adequate
protection, the free-traders could not
find words with which adequately to
express their ridicule and contempt
for the proposition. A prominent
free trade leader guaranteed to "eat"
all the tin plate that ever could be
manufactured in this country. But
protection was given, the industry
was established and in five years
time American manufacturers were
making all the tin plate which this
country required. Since that time
the business has so developed that the
industry has become a monopoly, and
it is now a trust within a trust, as a
leading member of the steel trust.
The time has therefore come when the
duties ought to be reduced for the ben
eft of our own people. 1t is only few
days ago that news came that the
Welch tin-plate works were about to
close, because they cannot compete
with the American manufacturers.
Within a very short time Mr.. Nor
gan's iron and steel trust has arbi-
trarily advanced the price of steel
rails in this country from $26 to $2S a
ton. Coincident with this came the
statement that American steel rails
are being carried to Europe and sold
at $22 a ton. This latter statement
may need verification, but, in any case,
the Infant industry" stage has been