Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1891 — STILL ONE MORE TRUST. [ARTICLE]

STILL ONE MORE TRUST.

IS COMBINING TO REAP THE M’KINLEY SPOILS. The Makers of Table Glassware ' Make a Combination—They Mean to Have Uniform i'rices How Labor Will lie Protected. One of our latest McKinley trusts is Ihat of the glass tableware manufactur~ers. Nineteen manufacturers of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia have just entered into a combination “to bring -about uniform prices.” Their pjea for keeping up prices is as follows: “If at any time business should be dull at one of the factories, that plant will close down and its orders be transferred to other factories. Should general dullness -ensue, the trust will operate only as .many factories as are necessary. ” This is the account of the trust as iprinted in the Philadelphia Ledger, a * leading protection journal. In protecting itself the glassware industry makes no provision for protecting labor; yet when representatives of the industry went before Maj. McKinley a year ago to get higher protection they ;put their plea upon the usual humbug pretense of protection to labor. Not only Ihao the higher protection not been followed by higher wages, but a trust is at once formed whose plan is to throw a part of its labor out of employment at the drat approach of “dullness.” When the glassware men were before McKinley last winter one of their number, a Mr. Gillinder, of Philadelphia, bad much to say about the low wages paid glassmakers in Germany. Besides being a manufacturer of pressed* glassware he makes lamp chimneys, shades, ■etc. Showing the committee nine speci. men of these latte?, he said: “The wages paid whero these goods ;are made are very low, not more than •one-third of what is paid in this country. The result is that they can import large •quantities of these goods at such prices that it is impossible for us to compete ■with them. We do not think for this •class of goods our men are overpaid, we do not think they average aver nine months’ work in the year; we therefore ask that, in addition to the present rate ■of duty, you put a specific duty on all these articles in addition to the ad valorem duty, not asking so much as the difference in wages, but as per inclosed •paragraphs, which we think would enable us to make lihem in this country to a much larger extent than we now do, •and would give more employment-to the workmen engaged in that branch of the trade. ” Mr. Gillinder was apparently under the delusion that a high tariff makes high wages, and he did “not want to see •our well-paid labor put on the same footing with those who are said to get meat •only once a week. ” Yet he had to admit that the wages of glass workers were not as high in protected Germany as in free-trade England. This is a part •of his testimony: Mr. Flower —Some statement has been made as to the efficiency of the German labor? Mr. Gillinder —I have not been in Germany myself, but my brother visited there and was very much astonished by the skill and quickness displayed by the ■German glass blowers. Mr. McMiliin—Does not your competition come more from Germany, where they have a protective tariff, than from England, where they have not? Mr. Gillinder—l think that is true. The reason for that is that labor in England is as two to ono in Germany, Where a workman gets sl2 in England •he gets $6 in Germany. Mr. McMiliin —And yet Germany is protected and England is not? Notwithstanding this manufacturer’s •knowledge that protection did not raise the wages of labor in Germany, ho was willing to try the experiment hero. Well, he got higher protection. The old duty was 40 per. cent.; the McKinley duty is CO per cont But nobody has yet heard •of higher wages to the workers in glassware factories. The only news on the subject is this dispatch, which means that some of the workers are going to lose their employment There was absolutely no excuse for the McKinley increase of duties in this ■case. Even under the old tariff the domestic industry was prosperous and developing rapidly. It has recently been stated by a reputable trade journal that the number of pots at work in the .glassware industry has been increased by 75 per cent, within two years. The •same journal states that the demand for glassware has increased so greatly of late that manufacturers are not afraid to hold their goods for an advance in , prices, which is looked for at an early •day. The trust will doubtless see to it that this expectation shall not be disappointed.

Cheap Iron In the South. A leading member of the British Iron ■and Steel Institute, who is an expert of the highest standing, has written a rejport'tm an iron ore property in the South in ' which he says that pig-iron can be made from the ore in question at $7 a ton. This is cheaper than at any place in Europe, as reported in the late “Preliminary Report on the Cost of Production,” issued by Carroll D. Wright, "United States Commissioner of Labor. "The lowest European cost given in his report is $7.67 per ton, and the average ■cost is $9.91. In his report seven Southern furnaces are given in which the cost ■of production is lower than this European average. In most of the Southern establishments the cost is a little greater than in Europe. In the Commissioner's roport no European establishment is given where ■the cost is so low as $7 a ton. Notwithstanding this fact our high tariff legislators put a duty of $6.72 a ton on pigiron to protect our producers from European competition, Our ironmakers went before McKinley a year ago to (fight for the existing duty and got it retained. They had. tables to show the low wages paid iron miners in Spain. Even from the South, where labor is eheapest and where iron is produced at lowest cost, interested capitalists were before McKinley’s committee to plead for protection to labor. It is true that no laborers came from the South to ask for such duties to protect themselves; it was the men who employ labor and employ it at the lowest market price. Only another example of the insincerity fostered by protection. The Tariff in (be Next Congress. Representative W. P. C. Breckinridge, -of Kentucky, has no idea that the Demcrats of the Fifty-second Congress are going to let the tariff issue drop out of the public mind. In a recent address before the Harvard Free Trade Club at Cambridge, Mass., he said the Democrats “will tender the Republican Senate a wellconsidered tariff bill,and when they reject

it, tney will go the propie on that issue in the fall of 1892, and will leave all otner questions among them to look out for themselves till this taxation question is settled. The people do not want sensationalism, or jingoism, or a war with England, but they want the taxes removed from the necessities of live and a fair ballot. This is a small beginning, but it means much for the future. ” The Kentucky Congressman hopes an extra session of Congress may be called in the spring, in order that the Democrats may have the earliest possible opportunity to begin action on the tariff. AND AN OATMEAL TRUST. The Oatmeal Duty a Specimen Humbug in McKinley’s “Farmer’s TaritT’— No Farmer Asked for an Oatmeal Duty, Yet McKinley Doubled It. In the McKinley tariff law there is a schedule called “agricultural products and provisions. ” Although most of the articles in this schedule were-- taxed under the old tariff law, McKinley made a new schedule, raised the duty on the farmer's products, and placed them in his “farmer's tariff” to fool him into thinking that he, too, is to have some of the benefits of protection at last. In his speech in introducing his bill, McKinley said on this part of the measure: “It has been asserted in the views of the minority that the duty put upon wheat and other agricultural products would be of no value to she agriculturists of the United States. The committee, believing differently, have advanced the duty upon these products."

In McKinley’s schedule of agricultural products and provisions one item is: “Oatmeal, 1 cent per pound.” The duty under the old law was one-half of a cent. A great number of farmers appeared before McKinley’s committee to ask for duties. Some wanted higher duties on beans, on potatoes, on barley: others on wheat, turnips, hops, etc. The farmers of Lancaster, Pa., sent resolutions asking, among other things, even for .a higher duty on oats; but no farmer thought it worth while to mention oatmeal, In all the lists of duties drawn up and handed to McKinley by farmers, oatmeal was not once mentioned. But all the same McKinley doubled the duty on oatmeal, and wrote it down in his “farmers’ tariff” at 1 cent per pound. Why it should be just thore is not clear, for oatmeal is a manufactured product and the duty on it does not in any way protect our farmers. On the contrary, many farmers are buyers of oatmeal, and if McKinley’s double duty affects them at ail, it simply increases the price of their oatmeal. How little reason there was to doub’e the oatmeal duty may be seen from the figures of our exports and imports fo* the past three fiscal years. Those figures are as follows: Exports, Imports, Tear. lbs. lbs. lass 4,329,291 1.007,620 18S9 10,210,418 1,963,433 1890 25,400,122 2,363,330 Total .....39,989,928 5,330,380 It is thus seen that our exports of oatmeal are increasing by leaps and bounds, while our imports are insignificant. McKinley's double duty on oatmeal went into effeefon the 6th of last October, and what is the first result? The oatmeal manufacturers have taken steps to form a trust. It is reported that each mill is to lose its identity in a big concern with a capital of several million dollars, and some of the smaller mills are to be closed down. That means labor thrown out of employment, a reduced output, and higher prices to the consumer. In this beatiful scheme the farmer, of course, will not get one penny more for his oats, but if he has oatmeal for his breakfeast he will pay tnore for it. In which case let him not forget that the oatmeal duty is a part of the McKinley “farmers’ tariff.” There are thousands of people In our cities and towns, many of them poor people, who uso oatmeal extensively. Most of these can ill afford to have the price of this staple breakfast dish increased. But McKinley must do something to fool the farmers. An Enormous Duty. Secretary Windom has recently decided that according to tho McKinley tariff law common goat hair must pay a duty of 12 cents a pound. As the price of the hair is only 4 to 6 cents a pound the duty thus imposed will be equal to from 200 to 300 per cent, ad valorem. This goat hair is used almost exclusively In making the cheaper kinds of carpets; and it is said by Bradstrcet's that the domestic supply of it is not 5 per cent, of the quantity demanded. The larger part of it is consumed in Philadelphia; and the high tariff carpet manufacturers of that city have been to Washington to try to get the decision reversed. Referring to their visit the New York Dry Goods Economist, which is itself a protection paper, says: “The recent classification of goat’s hair as wools of tho second-class has excited the indignation of such extreme protectionists as Thomas Dolan, Mr. Bonnan, of Donnau Bros.; Mr. Bromley and Mr. McClure, of Philadelphia: and others. They therefore appeared before Secretary Windom on

Tuesday and requested of hfnr # different interpretation of the new tariff. Section 377 classifies wool, etc., es the second class so clearly that we must express surprise at the desire of the abovenamed gentlemen to have goat's hair admitted free, in flat antagonism to the McKinley tariff on raw materials. We must applaud their efforts, however, for if they are successful they will have a numerous following for a like classification of other textile materials, and especially clothing and carpet wools.” The unreasonable duty will stop all importations; and it is said that shipments now on the water wilt be returned by the dealers without even having tho hair entered at the custom house. Our imports amount to about 3,000,000 pounds, nearly all of w’hich goes into the carpets of the poorer people. The beauties of McKinleyism are gradually coming to light; and as the people get a better sight of them the less they like them. 0