Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1908-03-19
ALL WRONG
REPUBLICAN IDEAS BASED ON
PALACES.
Excessive Tariff Rates Have Simply
Resulted in the Building Up Of
Enormous Fortunes for the
Comparative Few.

Comparative Few.
The Republican theory of trade
both domestic and foreign, is basel
on ~fallacies. They believe that if our
manufacturers are protected by tariff
rates high enough to prevent or re-
tard importations from foreign coun-
tries, the home market will con-
sumo all our factories can produce.
For some little time this theory
seemed to work to their satisfaction,
but the manufacturers discovered that
the high prices produced by this lack
of foreign competition also had the
effect of producing more manufactur-
ers at home to take advantage of the
large profits. This increased compe-
tition between manufacturers led to
the formation Of trusts and combines;
so that high tariff became the
mother OF trusts" These trusts
combined OF purchased as many of
the establishments in each line of
business as could be induced to sell
or participate, and at once increased
prices to the point Just below where
foreign competitors could export their
products to compete with the prod
ucts of the trusts. So the price of
trust and tariff protected products was
increased both by the, limitation of COM
petition at home and by the prohibit
ton of competition from abroad.
Hence we have had the rise i'm
prices since the present tariff law was
In operation. The trusts and com
bines, however, finding their profits
so large, were induced to manufacture
than the American people could
consume at the high prices they
charged. so they began to look for FOR.
eign markets abroad. But high prices
had naturally produced increased cost
of manufacture and to find customers
abroad they were compelled to sell
there cheaper than to our own people.
For some time the Republicans de.
MED that American goods we're sold
cheaper abroad than here, but the
Democrats produced evidence that
proved it was being done. Then the
Republicans changed their ground and
declared that the tariff protected trusts
were merely dumping" some of their
shop-worn and out-of-style products OF
the foreigners at bargain prices. Again
the, Democrats produced the evidence,
in their campaign book of 1902, that
hundreds of articles, exactly the same
as those sold here, were being offered
and sold by exporters for large dis
counts from the price in this couri-
try.
The trusts selling abroad cheaper
than at home very naturally led to re-
prisals by foreign governments, and
nearly every country but England has
increased its tariff rates to prevent
our trusts from competing with their
manufacturers. Notably, Russia,
Germany and France have enacted pro-
hibitive tariffs, and the conservative
party in England was led to make the
increase of the tariff an issue, but, the
people of England, when the election
III olOlllNt 6luJh W liz Ldlll "
revenue, under which England has
p%rospered and become the greatest
manufacturing nation.
The tariff and trust era in this
country has produced eXtravagance
and built up enormous fortunes, by
taxing the many for the benefit of the
few, and although it has thus pro-
duced prosperity for the few, it has
also helped to cause a panic that has
shaken the foundations of the finan-
cial and business affairs of the coun-
try.
The Republicans now face a demand
for tariff reform in their own ranks
from the manufacturers who are not
in trusts or combines who find that
the steel trust, the coal trust, the pa
per trust, the leather trust and other
trusts have so increased prices of
the partly manufactured articles they
produce, that those who use such in
their business, like the manufacturers
of steel into implements and the fac
tories that use coal, and the newspa.
per publishers and shoe m%anufactur.
ers, are combining for tariff reform.
The Republican program of stand
ing pat is therefore in such danger
Of defeat that there is a panic in the
ranks of the protectionists.
4r .