Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1891 — THE STARCH TRUST. [ARTICLE]

THE STARCH TRUST.

HISTORY OF A SPECIMEN TARIFF COMBINE. Dividing the Spoils for Six Months—A Case ot High Protection Where None Is Needed—A Prosperous Industry Exporting Its Product—How Home Market Prices Have Advanced. A few years ago the manufacturers of corn starch were loud.y complaining that there was no money in their business; but a little more than a year ago they formed a large trust composed of practically al! the manufacturers of starch in the country, and now they are happier. Before the trust was formed the price of corn starch at the factories was as low as cents a pound, but as soon as the trust was formed in March, 1890, prices at once took an upward jump, and now range from 3Ji to 3X cents. The trust having gotten in its work of raising prices, the business is now announced by a responsible trade paper to be very profitable. As an evidence of this it is stated that the National Starch Manufacturing Company, or starch trust, just declared a semi annual dividend of 6 per cent on the second preferred stock. What the first preferred stockholders received is not stated. Last year, about the time that the trust was formed, a careful estimate was made by a prominent starch dealer showing that a starch factory could easily earn 38 per cent, clear profit on its capital. This estimate was said to be made on actual facts, the factory in question having a capital of #IOO,OOO, grinding about 1,500 bushels of corn per day, and running 300 working days in a year. Corn could then be had at 30 cents a bushel; but, though the price is now more than twice that figure, this difference is more than counterbalanced by the higher prices for starch exacted by the trust. The McKinley duty on corn starch is 3 cents a pound, the same as under the new law. Notwithstanding the valiant talk of sundry Republican statesmen about reducing duties, in cases where a domestic industry is controlled by a trust, no effort was made by the McKinJeyites to lower the starch duty. This duty was equivalent at the time when the trust was formed, to 88 per cent, of the factory price of American starch. If there is any industry in the whole country which needs absolutely no protection, that industry is the starch business. Why so? Because our starch manufacturers have demonstrated their ability to compete in the markets of the world against the starch made by the so-called “pauper labor” of every country. They sold nearly 20,000,000 pounds in foreign countries during the two fiscal years 1889 and 1890 —the greater part of this being, of course, corn starch. Of the exports last year, 2,000,000 pounds went to England and 4,600,000 to the Netherlands. If our manufacturers are able to send so much starch to foreign countries, why is it necessary to protect them at home against those same countries? Could anything more absurd be imagined? The only purpose this starch tariff can serve, is to enable our precious home-market starch trust to put up prices to the domestic consumer, whi.e perhaps selling at lesser prices abroad.

Dife rence in Gold, “Most people suppose,” says an assayer, “that all gold is alike when refined, but this is not the case. An experienced man can tell at a glance from what part of the world a gold piece comes, and in some cases from what part of a particular gold district the metal was obtained. The Australian gold, for instance, is distinctly redder than the Californian, and this difference ia color is always perceptible, even W’hen the gold is one thousand fine. Again, the gold obtained from the placers is yellower than that which is taken directly from quartz. Why this should be the case is one of the mysteries of metallurgy, for the placer gold comes from the veins. The Ural gold is the reddest found anywhere. Tew people know the real color of gold, as it is seldom seen unless heavily alloyed, which renders it redder than when pure. The purest coins ever made were the SSO pieces that used to be made in California. Their coinage was abandoned for two reasons: first, because the loss by abrasion was so great, and, secondly, because the interior would ,be bored out and lead substituted, the difference in weight being too small to be readily noticed in so large a piece. These octagonal coins were the most valuable ever struck. - A protectionist organ rejoices that the tariff reduced the price of galvanized iron sheets from 7% cents a pound in 1880 to 4% cents in 1889. This is used as an argument to show that the tinplate duty will have a simi ar effect, since “tin plate is only sheet iron dipped in tin. ” But the average price of foreign tin plates for that same year (1889) was 2 8-10 cents per pound. How can we beat that when our galvanized iron is itself 4% cents? The Mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople is always fragrant with the odor of musk, and has been so for hundreds of years, ever since it was rebuilt in the ninth century, the curious part of it being that nothing is done to keep it perfumed. The solution to the seeming mystery lies in the fact that when it was built, over 1,000 years ago, the stones and bricks were laid in mortar mixed with a solution of musk. The first iron-plate furnaces in this country were built In Virginia between 1714 and 1730, under the o’.d Colonial Governor Spotswood. Yet in the year of grace 1891 we are still protecting pig iron as an “infant industy. ” A hoary infant that!