Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1884 — PROTECTION DOES NOT PROTECT. [ARTICLE]

PROTECTION DOES NOT PROTECT.

A recent number of the Indianapolis News contains severaljintervie ws with prominent manufacturers of the capitol city. In every case these manufacturers express opposition to a high protective tariff and assert that such a tariff is highly detrimental to their business. Mr. Thomas Davis, of the firm of Sinker, Davis <fe Co., manufacturers of engines and boilers, said: The manufacturers of steam engines and boilers and saw mills need no protection at all; they need cheaper iron and steel, and they also need foreign markets, which are now closed to them by the high tariff. TheJAmerican engine, for farm purposes, saw mills, oil wells, and general use, is lighter, stronger, and, considering the high price that we have to pay for raw material, cheaper than that made in any other country in the world. — All that we want is the right to buy our material in the cheapest market and .sell our manufactureswherever we can find people who want to buy them. Neither of these are possible at present, because the tariff system has the effect of raising the price of raw material and closing foreign markets to American manufactures. We are virtually confined to a home trade. Being asked as to the effect of tariff reform on labor, Mr. Davis said that he thought wages would be raised, because supply and demand regulate prices, and with a larger market for goods there would be a larger market for labor.” Mr. Nordyke, of the firm of Nordyke & Marmon, manufacturers of mill machinery, said: I suppose I must be classed as a protectionist -C T in n hUI A V U tt>U. XVA VAtVAAAVAviI

campaign which was conducted on protectionist theories. — Really I am a tariff reformer. I voted for Garfield because I had no confidence in the Democrats, and also because at that time I had not examined the operation of tariff, the discussions of its workings led me to investigate, and I am certain that our trade is crippled by the present import duties; the cost of raw material is raised bj the direct operation of the tariff, and our markets are restricted by its indirection. For example, the price of lumber is raised by the prohibit*) y duty on Canadian timber; the Canadian government in return places a duty on our manufactures that amounts to prohibition, and yet we ought to have a very larg 3 trade with Canada; the roller mills whieh we make are in demand in that country, and as we can not sell them in the Canadian market at a profit after paying duty on them, we are contemplating the building of a factory for their production in Canada.”

Mr. Lindley Vinton, of the Vinton Iron works, said: “I am like most other men; I can tell when I am hurt.— Trade is very dull; in conversation with a partner in the Eagle Machine works a few weeks ago, he said that it had not been auite so dull for eight years. The reason in the case of this firm is that it cannot find buyers without extending its markets; we make engines, and also tile mills, these thing! last for a long time, and the State of Indiana is tolerably well supplied with them—in P T ai words the local market is not large enough for the manufactories in this city. I saw that I must either discharge many of my hands or find a new marnet. I wanted to the men at wor? so I went into other States, particularly Ohio, and contracted to supply manufacturers there; niany a machine sold with an

Ohio brand on it is made at our works. But, mind you, I ought not to be selling at a low rate to Chio manufacturers. I ought to be dealing direct with the purchaser, and but for the tariff I would be. I have had twenty inquiries for our machines this winter from Canadians, but the. duty is thirty and a third per cent, against our goods, and we can not trade. W by, do you know that H. B. Smith & Co., of Jackson, Mich., manufacturers of flour millers’ goods, have just been compelled to build a factory, (at "indsor, I think, but just on the Canadian side, anyhow,) which employs between 400 and 500 hands to satisfy their Canadian customers with their patent midlings purifier. The tariff has just protected 500 American hands out of a job and protected 500 Canadian ones into It. The four leading industries of Indianapolis are the making of engines and boilers, saw mills, flour mills and tile mills; in the last we beat any city in

America, having four factories devoted to their make against two in any other.--There is no reason, apart from the oppressive effect of the tariff, why the manufacturers of this city should not do a large traffic with South America, Canada, and evt n Europe. But because there is a duty on foreign ore we have to pay $23 a ton for Alabama iron, delivered here from the Te* cumseh works; that iron can be made at $9 per ton, and is made at $11; it would be made at $9 if it were made with all the advantages of machinery used in England, but because the tariff gives the Alabama maker a bonus of sl2 per ton he works in a slovenly and extravagant manner. And foreign labor is just an cheap in Alabama with her negro population as it is in England, and skilled labor not very much higher, the price of '"lothin"- etc., considered. Now iron anti’ steel enter into ulo compost : on of all goods made by the o ur industries which! have named to the extent of at least 85per cent. As far as the ben efic ial effect of protection to any Indiana industry is concerned it is enough to say that Ohio is a far more dangerous than England. If we are to be protected protect ns by a tariff on Ohio goods The whole theory is fallacies.”*

The LaPorte Argus, in referring ro the millionaire DePauw, says: “If we admit that DePauw had been a reliable Democrat, an admission that is not justified by his former acts, we can readily explain his desertion to the Kepublicans, and show the shameful gi eed and selfishness that actuated him in the matter. He is the owner of glass works, the product of which is, and has been from their start, protectedby a tariff that amounts to from one hundred to one hundred and fifty per cent This glass is almost a necessity to the public, and such a tax is little better than robbery of the people who use it. Mr, DePauw is very rich, but the censns shows that the average wages [laid the laborers in these glass factories amounts to only about $6 per week. It is clearly not the laboring men who get the benefit of this enoi mous tax that more than doubles the price of plate glass An inquiry of who does get the benefit, and wliat political party is responsible for the privilege ni.joyed, rnny tell why the bciionciary bestows his friendship amd his vote on the Republican party: In common gratitude, that is where he ought to bestow it, but what can be said in defense of the act to the men who use plate glass? Is there any doubt that the party that opposes such a tax will gam far more than it will lose? Such a doubt woVl be an insult to the intelligence and honesty of any people.’’