Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — OLD FIGURES AND NEW. [ARTICLE]

OLD FIGURES AND NEW.

"M’KINLEY PRICES” FOR ENAMELED AND GROUND GLASS. An Advance of Forty to Seventy-fire Per Cent.—The Village Home and McKinleyiam—Hard Lot of the Importer in Free America. The McKinley tariff law continues its work of raising the prices of the things "that the people need. The purpose of the law being to do that very thing, the men who passed it are now finding new occasions to rejoice in its success A late case that has just come to light is that of enameled and ground glass. "This glass is made from the plain sheets used for window glass by grinding figures upon it. There are too kinds of it: what is known in the trade as “clear” and as "“obscure. ” The first Is made by grinding figures in the plain, transparent sheets, and the eye can easily distinguish •objects through it; the second is made t>y grinding one surface of the transparent sheet till it loses its transparency, and then the figures are ground upon this surface. The figures are usually squares or diamonds in ornamental designs. This glass is used mainly for making glass doors in the interior of houses; and much of it goes into the cottages of people of modest means. Much of it is used in village and country houses. It is, therefore, an article which it is to the interest of our people to keep within the reach of their purses. They were paying 45 per cent, tariff tax on this glass up to Oct. 6, but Maj. McKinley, having taken it into his head that “cheap and nasty go together,” has put the duty •enormously higher, and so the price of it has now become a regular “McKinley (price." A large New York dealer recently showed the writer some samples of this glass and gave him a table of the old prices and the “McKinley prices.” The •old prices here given are those which prevailed last July, and the “McKinley prices” took effect Nov. 19, or as soon as the stock of glass imported under the old tariff was sold out. The prices here given are the wholesale net prices per 100-foot cases. Here is the table: Old McKinley price. price. Single, clear enameleds6.9o SIO.BO Double, clear enameled 8.70 15.00 Single, obscure 8.70 12.60 Double, obscurelo.Bo 16.50 Single, ground 6.00 10.20 Double, ground 7.80 13.80 The cause for these higher prices was ■explained by the dealer to be the new McKinley duty. What those duties are may be seen by taking a 100-foot case of 'the last kind of glass in the above table, double-thick ground glass. The old duty on this was $1.35 per case, and it was sold in July at $7.80, and some of it was sold as low as $7. The McKinley duty on such a case is $5.55, and on some of it is -as high as $6.85. It is not strange, therefore, that the wholesale selling •<yrice has now gone up to $13.80. The increase of duty does not account lor the entire advance, but the other McKinley law, the customs administrative law, explains the difference. This law, which went into operation Aug. 1, •compels the importer to pay duties on all •glass broken in shipment. The dealers allow from 10 to 20 per cent, for breakage in this kind of glass, and they must add to their selling price enough to make up for the broken glass and the duties on it. Even the glass broken by the custom-house officers is lost to the dealer, and he must pay the duty on it, too. Is it any wonder that the importers feel the injustice of such a law? “We 'talk a great deal about our rights under a free government,” said the glass man to the writer; “but we importers find that In this country might makes right. I should like to see you tell a customhouse officer that you ought not to be made to pay duties on the glass that he •breaks. He would take you for a fool, -and would laugh in your face. We have no rights which the dominant party is bound to respect. It has sold itself to the domestic manufacturers for ‘fat,’and they dictate what they want, and the law-makers obediently vote as •desired.” ,