Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1891 — OPPRESSING THE POOR. [ARTICLE]

OPPRESSING THE POOR.

.Some Facts About the Increased Doty on CorJuroy Cloth. Cheap corduroy is used for clothing by many thousands of workingmen, and a finer quality is used to some extent by the well to-da It was to have been expected that in making any change in the tariff on corduroy eventhe framers of the McKinley bill would have taken care that the Increase should be no greater on the cheap than on the more expensive article. The contrary, however, is the fact. The truth is that the increase on the finer goods is comparatively light while that on the poor is about 33% per cent Here are some eloquent figures furnished by a correspondent of the New York Evening Past: Cheap grade. Dearer grade. Cost per yard in England 170 600 Cost In the U. 8., duty free 21)$o 60a Cost in the U. 8., under old tariff (35 per cent. ad valorem).. Cost In the U. 8., under McKinley tariff (Ho ■■■■■ per sq. yd. plus v * ' 20 per ot. ad valorem) 360 820 Change in tariff Increases oost,10)gO or 41 per ot. 8o or 4 per ct. McKinley tariff adds to dutyfree cost e 6 perct 86 per ct. This, however, does not tell the whole story. When the duty was increased no corduroy was made in tho United States. The owners of the Crompton Mills at Providence, R. 1., however, wished to make corduroys, and after the duty had been increased in the original bill, It was still further increased in conference committee on the very night before the measure was passed. Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island is credited with having brought about this second increase of duty. Since the law went into effect the Crompton Mills Company has been experimenting with corduroy. The company professes to he able to supply all that is needed, but dealers deny this and importers affirm that tho importations of corduroy have fallen off enormously because the poor are no longer able to buy at the enhanced price. They must substitute some other and less satisfactory material, because the Government of tne United States has consented to discourage tho importation of cheap corduroys in the interost of a single company of manufacturers. Josiah H. Fithian & Co , of New York, are agents of tho Crompton Company, and when a reporter of the Eocnlng Post asked Mr. Fithian about corduroys here is what he said: “I havo always found that ‘the still pig gets the most swill.’ And it is ‘swill’ that I am after, not the dissemination of information. Therefore —to your question—no.” It would Lave been well for Mr. Fithian had he contended himself with this porcine reply, but for some curious reason he went on to say these things of the McKinley bill and protection: “I don’t know what wai tho aim of it. I don’t know that tho framers of the tariff had any aim. I sometimes think they hadn’t. What aim, for instance, could they have had In requiring that every imported article should be stamped with the country of its origin? I hea they acted cn the theory that Americans woie so patriotic that, on seeing a thing was foreign, they would buy something domestic. But would not sensible men know that Americans have sufficient human nature to buy what is the best va uo for their money, no matter where it comes from? For my part, whenever I go to buy things for my personal use and goods are shown mo, and I am told that they are of domestic manufacture, I nearly always pass them by, because experience has taught me that almost invariably the foreign-made article is more substaut al and tho better bargain. In fact, lam by nature a free-trader—one on the broad principle of Henry Ward Beecher, that all the world is one kindred, and that no kinsman has a right to set up barriers against the others. The Crompton Mills did not need so high a duty on corduroy; they would succeed better without it. ” “Do you mean if they had no higher tariff than the old?” “No: I mean without any tariff at all —with absolute free trade. True, wages would be reduced, but the purchasing power of money would so increase that the equalization would be perfect ”