Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-10-29
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
tion I'm Consequence OF De-
a Demand.


In these days of retrenchement and
sagging exports, which are the natural
results of a high protective tariff, our
manufacturers have been looking for
markets abroad that were not walled in
by a protective tariff against them.
The British colonies in South Africa
seemed the best field for exploiting and
quite a nice business was springing up
in that direction. The department of
commerce, which now includes the
bureaus of statistics. was quick to call
attention to our increased trade with
South Africa, and the protectionist or
gans pointed to it as an example of for
eign trade that had not been reduced by
our W protection wall. But alas.
those wicked Britishers who are free
traders at home, where they cannot
raise enough necessities to supply
themselves, when transplanted to a new
country with infant industries, which
they are trying to build up, have deter
mined on protection.
The department of commerce now in
forms us that all British territory in
South Africa has put in operation a pref
erential tariff system in favor of Great
Britain of rs per cent. This will soon
wipe out the trade that our exporters
have built up with so much expense and
care. The business thus lost with South
Africa amounted to $33, 000, 900, or about
one-fourth of what the same territory
bought from England, and the amount
was increased with surprising rapidity.
In 1898 u trade there amounted to
only one-tenth of the British, which
shows the great increase since that date.
Our trade with Canada is being cut
OIL in exactly the same name and all
the European governments are also
raising their tariff walls higher and
higher against us. The principal suf-
ferers by this system of protection
adopted by other countries will be the
American workingman and farmer.
Both will be cut off from markets for
hes surplus they produce over and above
what the people of the United States can
consume. The workingmen will suffer
by the decreased demand for what they
manufacture and the farmers by the de-
creased markets for their surplus. As
the demand decreases prices for goods
or produce fall and wages decline, which
is the immediate result that may be
looked for in this country. In fact, the
process has already begun and some of
the greater manufacturers-the trusts
have already notified their workmen
that the reduction must be made. The
steel trust has posted notices that on
January LIST a new agreement with its
employees will be necessary. The
Dover, N. j., Index of October I'd, says:
Some of the employees of the mines
in this section have received notice that
their wages will be cut Is cents per day,
and it is said that the same rule is to
prevail in all the mines in the coun-
try in the course of a few days. This is
occasioned by the big slump in steel
and a consequent reduction in the price
of pig iron"
That is from a local newspaper pub,
lished in the iron mine region and the
information therefor comes at first
hand.
A Chicago special correspondent OF
the New York Evening Post of Septem-
Der 30th says:
"The railroads and machine shops are
not using as many men as recently, the
night shifts have in a number of in
stances been dispensed with, owing to
the falling off in business"
Thus we have the natural result OF
protection brought home to us by the
efforts of other countries to preserve
their markets for their own goods. As
the foreign demand for our surplus pro-
auctions decrease we must reduce our
output. To reduce means men out OF
work and lower wages.
During the height of the trust boom,
that has now run its course, wages have
been increasing; they will now begin to
fall and only the best skilled workmen
will find steady employment. The pro-
tectionists would have us believe that
the Dingley bill, if untouched, will con-
tinue prosperity, but the facts show that
it has bred trusts and monopolies,
raised the prices of living far beyond the
increase of wages, forced foreign coun-
tries to increase their tariff wall against
American products, and produced a
panic in the stock market which seems
destined to extend to all branches of
trade.
That the tariff has been the mother of
trusts was a sworn statement of one OF
the great trust magnates, and that the
trusts have been selling their products
cheaper to foreigners than to our own
people has been proven. Yet with all
this evidence of the harm that the pro-
tective tariff has done and is doing the
republican leaders have determined not
to reduce or reform it and are already
engaged in packing the committees of
the coming congress so that the subject
cannot even be considered.
CURRENT COMMENT.