The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-04-26
TO MAKE FIGHT
 ON CLOCK TARIFF

New Haven, April 26-The New Ha-
 ven Clock Company, as well as other l clock manufactories in the United l States, is making strong efforts to | convince the committee on Ways and l Means that the proposed reduction of I the duty on clocks from 40 to 30 per | cent will seriously harm the clock 1 making trade and may eventually | pave the way for a monopoly of the
 German-made clock, if American man. ] ufacturers are compelled, as they must
 be. to go out of business because of | the small profit to be made if the tar
 if reduction is enacted into law. Walter Camp, president of the New l Haven Clock Company, has appeared before individual members of the Ways and Means committee and hopes to appear before the body as a whole. Congressman Reilly has said that ht. 1 is firmly convinced that the cost of living would be in nowiSe reduced, and a hardship imposed upon the American workman if the tariff were reduced, and he was able through his influence
 and arguments before the committee to overru1e the unanimous vote in fla vor Of reducing the tariff on clocks by the vote of 76 to z7. It is more than possible that the committee may
 place the clock industry in a separ- ate schedule.
 Walter Camp, speaking yesterday of the effect of a reduced tariff. said: ''The committee perhaps has not ap- preciated the fact that in seeking to solve the cost of living problem, that clocks are not articles of daily con sumption The actual consumer can buy rnantel clock for g and an alarm clock for 75 cents. The life or
 the former is at least ten years, ana ana
 the latter three, so that less than one cent week covers clocks at their present prices.
 sThe proposed new duty is a cut of twenty-five per cent. which would only
 reduce the cost to the consumer or
 the clock about the amount or a posI- age stamp a year, while it would 5eo- pardize the continuance of the indus try of some Is, GOO people, the price or the imported article would be ra1se eo at once so that the net result Woulo be higher prices Tor clocks
 ssC1ock manufacturers are constant Iv being chased with groups where there are trusts, no competitors m Hated capitalization and watereo spock and where the manufacturers s7u their goods lower abroad than dt horne and for these various reasons ue are asked to bear responsibilities which are not ours. American CLOCKS are sold here for the fdentpcal prlcs abroad, but if the tariff IS reouceu the foreign article will be cheapef than the home made one' ana Ehiie can manufacturers, being unable to coTnpete will have to close their Iac- tories. Then will come the triumph of the German clock maker, our greatest rival. Having secured the T,onopolv of the market he will De able to charge his own price, eventu- ally a much larger one than now pre- walls.
 soTFne German clock maker is now able to make a clock cheaper than me American. because he can ana ooes pay his help less.
 'aThe difference In the efst or nVlns +o those engaged in other traces through a reduction in duty upon clocks would be so inf.nitesimal as 10 be a. negligible quantity, amounting 10 a small fraction of a cent a week. while that reduction would to the lo' GOO or 15.OO0 operatives mean poverty instead, of independence, and would m volve an economic waste in the idle ness of plants and special machinery, the results of nearly century or American ingenuity and invention
 '@The clock industry is not a trust if has not a. cent of water in it's capl- taIization and as such is not one or tFe industries to which government action is directed as harmful to the people The industry has not paid more than a 6 per cent. earning upon it's investment through its precarfous career and sometimes in times of bus mess uncertainty in the past, not even that amount