Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-06-10
LET US BLESS THE BEEF TRUST


 rejoicing ill the good times that have come about with the election of republican presi- dent and the revision of the tariff upward, has increased the price of beef. As usual, all sorts of excellent reasons are urged for this action. Cattle are scarce, feed is high, and so on. It is evident that the beef packers, or their official explainers do not read the tariff debates in the United States senate If they did, they would learn that the real trouble is that there are too many cattle, not in this country, but in other countries-C Canada for instance. Because there are so many cattle in Canada and Argentina and elsewhere, we impose a tariff duty of 2 cents pound on fresh meat and $2 head to 2715 per cent ad valorem on live cattle. These duties keep out importations of fresh meat and live cattle so that the scarcity of cattle, if there is any, is purely artificial scarcity, maintained by our prohibitive tariff rates. If these rates were removed there would be no scarcity of cattle and fresh meat would be abundant and cheap.
 This being the beef situation, would you be- lieve that the senate voted recently to sustain the Dingley rates on fresh meat, and refused to consent to the small reduction made by the housei Not only that, but it was gravely urged that this was done to protect the farmer, the very man who has to sell to the beef trust at the trusts own prices, and who has been complaining to the Federal government that he cannot get fair deal in the trust market. It was naively confessed that if the duty were reduced the trust would force down the far mer's price to the extent of the reduction in duty, giving the screw of oppression one more twist. In order to save the farmer from. this last turn of the screw, the trust must be protect ed from any foreign invasion of its exclusive market and the artificial scarcity kept up that enables it to control the whole beef situation from the prices paid the farmer for his cattle to the prices levied on the ultimate consumer for his pound of beefsteak.
 But across an imaginary line over in Canada, there are plenty of beef cattle. Why, if the duty were removed, says Senator Gallinger, in a fine burst of indignation, we would be deluged with Canadian beef A reduction in the duty, Senator Heyburn fears, would open the beef market to foreign competition. Thousands of cattle would be driven across the line, without expense for transportation. Millions would be saved the consumer and lost, so they tell us, to the American producer What boon deluge of cheaper beef would be to those toiling mil lions so eoquently championed by the scholarly senator from Massachusetts! A boon, we say, but we have his word that they care naught for cheaper things; that they pay uncompainingly a 100 per cent duty on rice and other necessities, knowing that to be the price of their jobs. Com petition with the beef trust It is not to be thought of for moment, for would it not serve as an excuse to squeeze the American farmer9
 Happy dreams of protection. The toiler can get no work unless he pays tribute on every thing he eats and wears; the farmer cannot raise cattle unless every consumer of meat is taxed to swell the profits of the beef trust. Plen- ty of cattle in sight, but we cannot have cheaper meat lower price on sugar to the trust, but not to the consumer--the immense productivity of nature and human ingenuity corralled to serve monopoly. The tariff bill has but one de- feet Guaranteeing the manufactures his prof it's, preserving to trusts their exclusive control of domestic markets giving the workman en- Lployment, if you insist yet what paragraph in it secures to the earner of wages an increase of salary commensurate with the increase of prices that goes with an upward revisions
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