New-York tribune., 1910-08-14
SHORT ON FACTS.

In his reply 10 Senator Aldrich' S
statement oi Thursday Senator Brlstow
clearly evades the issue which he oriSi-
rally raiseu-that Mr. Aldrich had used
lis influence as chairman of the Senate
finance Committee To Increase the dufy
on cerIaln manufactures OF rubber IN
order 10 enlarge the profits of the Inter
continental RupLer Company. With that
vagIeloSS with which abuses of public
.lIst are how charged or iDSinuatcd, the
Kansas Senator sought TO persuade the
public that Mr. Aldrich as Senator had
raised the duty arbitrarily Oh articles
in the domestic production of which he
was engaged as a Stockholder III man
ufacturing corporation. Mr.. Aldrich re-
piled that the corporation part of whose
stoc. he held was concerned only with
the production of crude rubber i'll Mex
leo and other foreign countries, that
crude rubber came in free under the
| Dingley tariff law and continues to come
| in free under the Payne law, and that
pot Il cent of the company's earnings
| is derived from the manufacture i'll this
country of the rubber goods classed as
miscellaneous on which the duty was
| increased from 80 per cent I'D rdl0rem
TO ;;5 per cent al Udlorem in order to
equaIize the rate on them with the rate
Cn other rubber goods differently claSSi-
fed MI Bristow charged Mr.. Aldrich
with manipulating tariff rates in his own
private interest. Now, instead of with
drawing the accusation, with an apOl-
ogy. he falls back on other conJectureS
and insinuations, suggesting that if the
Iptercontinental Rubber Company has
not profited so far by the increase of
the duty on certain manufactures Of
rubber it might SO profit in the future
il il entered the field as domestic
manufacturer.
The Kansas Senator's efforts to con-
vert what might be into what is and
to establish a beneficial connection be-
tween the altered tariff rate on manu-
factured rubber and the Intercontinental
companys activities as a producer Of
the untaxed free raw material are in
teresting only as a fight of fancy. He
gives his hearers their choice between
two theories. They can believe, on the
one hand, that the company in which
Mr. Aldrich is interested hoped to get
higher price in this country for its
crude rubber by raising the duty on a
small fraction of the importat tionS of
manufactured rubber from 80 to So per
cent dd rdIorem That increase, Mr..
Bristow contends, aided the domestic
manufacturers to -'monOpolize' the
American market and therefore inclined
them TO pay higher price for the crude
rubber. But inasmuch as the domestic
manufacturers already supplied 9S1a per
cent of the domestic consumption it is
hard TO see how their control of the
home market could have been materially
strengthened by the increased duty.
IN the eleven months Of the fiscal year
ended May 81 1909, the imports Of manu-
factures Of india rubber amounted in
value TO S1,314,312. In the eleven
corresponding months of the fiscal year
19O9'10 they amounted in value to 81,
132. .SS4. That shows the extent Of the
decrease in importa tions which Mr. Bris-
tow says was intended to give the do
lnestic manufacturers q monopoly of
the home market Moreover. since the In
tercontinental Rubber Company was able
TO supply less than 10 per cent Of the
american demand for rubber it is not
easy to understand how it could EXPECT
in return for the slight reduction eff
| fected in importations of manufactured
goods TO be favored by d higher price
| Tor its raw product when rival produc-
/ Crs stood ready to sell to factories here
! ct the rate fixed in the worlds open
market. The price of crude rubber is
made al London and Antwerp. and the
manufacturers in this country can buy
| il those cities at the market quotation.
| They would be under no compulsi0n and
10 obligation to take the product of NJ
l.ldrich's company AT an advanced price
| But. says the Kansas Senator. they
would be intimidated into giving a
special rate. because if they didn't the
intercontinental company would go into
the manufa curing business here That T.
Theory Number Two. According TO IT. If
they 1.-THE domestic manufacturers re-
fused to petroniZe him lat special
-'price!. under his charter he had ample
"tition with them and would be backed
"by the Ryans. the GuggenheimS and
The Rockefellers. and no sensible man
in business would desire to undertake
TO compete with those powerful in
''teTeSts
In this version OF the matter charges
lased on what Mr.. Aldrfch was said To
Lave done are ingenuously replaced with
specula tions as 10 what Mr.. Aldrch
might do if he felt like il. The contro-
versy ceases to be one about facts and
lecomes one about possibilities, infer
ences and contingencies Of the sort in
which the inventive and imaginative
EUckrakers Of our day delight. Mr.. Bris-
tow would have spared himself much
mOrtifica ton if he had told the country
frankly at the beginning that his criti-
cisms were Of the fourth dimension -
inner consciousness sort.
I TURN N THE TIDE.
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