Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1886 — Our Monopoly-Fostering Tariff. [ARTICLE]

Our Monopoly-Fostering Tariff.

J. S. Moore, in a lotter to the New York Times, taking as his tart an extract from a fipeeeh of Hon. Wm. L. Scott, made at Erie, Pa., on the 30th ult., shows in a very clear light the tribute which the tariff enables the iron and steel monopolists of the United States to levy from the consumers. Eighteen months ago Mr. Scott bought 10,000 tons of steel rails from a Pennsylvania ro.ling mill, paying $25.50 per ton theiefor—a price perfectly satisfactory to the teller. Thera was then no combination of the steel mills of the country. Sir months later a combination was effected, and now the price of steel rails is $33 per ton. The advance in the cost of producti n since Mr. Scott made his purchase does not exceed $2.50 per ton, leaving an ad vance in steel rails of $5 per ton without any necessity i'or it. The steel rail mills produce 1,500,000 tons of steel rails a year, so that the additional profit of $5 p r ton amounts to $7,500,000, to be annually divided between the seven or eight mills. The railroads, said Mr. Scott, do not pay this excessive profit. They “simply advance the money, and it is you who travel over the railroads, and who transport your merchandise and produce over them, who in the end pay this excessive profit to the manufacturers. It comes at last upon the people.” '1 he duty on steel rails is sl7 a ton. The price paid in England, when Mr. Scott bought his rails, was about $17.51). With the duty, troight, and cost of handling, the cost of foreign rails dn the United States would be about $35. The steel rail makers of the United States, by combining, forced the price up to $33. The duty alone made this possible—alone made it possible to plunder the people. In 1880. Mr. Moore points out, the total capital invested in steel production in this country was $20,975,990; the wages paid, $4,930,349; the total value of production, $55,805,210. The steel rail product of 1880 was $37,408,025; the wages in round numbers, $3,700,000, or about $5 per ton. Wages are not higher now than in 1880, and the wages paid for the production of 1,500,000 tons of steel rails will not exceed $7,500,009. This is the amount of the extra profit which the combination enabled the steel manufacturers to make—that is, the combination reimbursed themselves for the sum paid for the wages of producing the 1,500,000 tons of rails. Mr. Moore is perfectly convinced that a duty of $lO per ton would be mo o than ample, not only to protect our manufacturers of rails, but even keep foreign rails out. But it would also give consutneis steel rails $5 or $7 a (ou cheaper. A $lO duty could not possibly reduce wages, but it would materially leduce the enormous profits of the monopo ists. Mr. Moore places in parallel columns a statement made by Mr. Scott, on the authority of the greatest purchaser of steel rails in the United States, teat the p.inc pal bone of contention in the Board of Directors of a Pennsylvania iron and steel company, with a capital of $19,000,1)00, has been whether or not they should make au extra dividend of $10,000,000, and an extract from James M. Swank’s report to the Census Bureau in 1880, shoeing that the avc-raee wages paid tiro 140,978 persons employed n the iron and steel industry wire t? 393.51 for each person, and that the average hours of labor per week was sixtyfive. The average daily pay of unskilled labor was $1.24. It takes over 25,881 workingmen working 300 days per year to produce for t :emselves the equivalent of the extra $10,000,000, which, as Mr. Moore puts it, proves suo’i a source of trouble to the directors of the bloated protected iron and steel corporation of Pennsylvania.— Detroit Free Press.