Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1891 — KICKING AT TRUSTS. [ARTICLE]

KICKING AT TRUSTS.

A PROTEST PROM THE PITTSBURG GROCERS Condemning Trust* and Combines—Crack- ■***;, Jellies, Preserves, and Fruit Butter Meld at High Prices—Trusts Protected by the Tariff. The Retail Grocers’ Association of Pittsburg, Pa., has been having a mild whack at trusts and combinations. A ter commending the action of the sugar refiners in reducing tho price of sugar as the result of the removal of the duty last April, tho association says: “We regret to ■ ay that there are other manufacturers of staple goods which are largely consumed, such as jellies, preserves, .fruit butters and crackers of all kinds, who maintain former prices, notwithstanding the great reduction in sugar and the bountiful supply of wheat and fruits of all kinds.”

The assoc ation further be’ieves “that ! crackers of all kinds, jellies; preserves, Sad fruit butters are entirely too high, and that prices are maintained by influences other than tho law of supply and demand;” and that “all kinds of fruit products can be maintained and manufactured at greatly reduced prices. ” In commenting on this, the New York Merchants’ Review, a stern foe to all our tariff trusts, says: “There can be no question as to the tariff being involved in this matter of the prices, of the goods mentioned in the resolutions qf .our Pittsburg friends, and it may b6,said without exaggeration that tho tariff te responsible for tho condition of which the grocers complain. They appear to be thankful for the reduction of sugar prices—a result of the passage of the McKinley law—but as the same measure, by its provisions which maintain or iti- , crease the duties of certain other goods handled by grocers, is chiefly responsib e for the existence of manufacturers’ trusts and combinations, or at least gives them power to maintain prices above the level of foreign markets, the quarrel of the Pittsburg Association would seem, ought to bs with the tariff and those responsible for its oueroim provisions ” It should be added that the cracker combine is protected by a duty of 20 per cent.; the combines controlling jelly, preserves, fruit butter, etc , by a duty of 35 per cent. In England tho poor working people buy fruit, jams, marmalades, etc., as substitutes for butter. If it were not for our protective taxes on these articles, would not the trusts be compelled to sell at . lower prices and thus put these articles in. reach of poorer people than can now indulge in them?

An enormous cavern has been discovered in Josephine County, Oregon, near the California line, and about forty miles from the coast. It is in a limestone region, which extends for miles. Many of the passages within the cave are described as of great beauty, containing semi-transparent stalactites, giant milk-white pillars and pools and streams of pure, clear water. A creek flows from the main opening to the cave. Several miles from the entrance is a small lake and a waterfall thirty -feet in height. The (favern appears to he fully as large as the Mammoth Cave vin Kentucky.

The antics of two young women produced a considerable commotion in a railway car. that was just entering Boston. The girls managed to calm themselves sufficiently to tell the conductor in’confidence that they believed it was a rat. The conductor grasped the animal through several thicknesses of summer fabrics, and when uncovered it proved to be a playful kitten. It subsequently got away from him, scrambled over the bald head of a sleeping gentleman from Cambridge, and tried to hide itself in the glass globe of a trainman’s lantern.

An old brindle cow belonging to an Indiana man broke into another’s field, and in court the owner of the field proved that the cow destroyed the following mentioned property, to wit: Two four-year-old cherry trees, seven apple trees, five pear trees, one plum tree, 100 head of cabbage, twelve rows of beans five rods long, one row of beets one and one-half rods long, fifty to 150 sweet potato plants, one bed of onions, three grapevines and fourteen blackberry bushes? Wm. Walter Phelps seems to have shown quite a measure of success as a foreign Minister. This is by no means strange when we consider the fact that his life in New Jersey has made him perfectly familiar with foreign ways and customs.

The Eoston Transcript, a Republican journal, offers tho fol owing to temper the glee of the McKinleyites In their rejoicings over free sugar: “It is now thought that $K,000,000 will be required to pay the sugar bounty the pre ent year. We are supposed to have made sugar free, and the American people will pay $12,000,000 in 1891 for having done it The Government doesn't furnish the money. It is the people. It is a highly Interesting fact that tho protected producers of pig lead in this country sell lead in Canada at a price lower by 18 per cent, than the price which the people oi the United States are required to pay. Another object lesson of the beauties of McKinleyism. —Boston Globe. The tariff trusts are gradually raking in everything Now it is a snath trust This trust was recently organized as the National Snath Company; and articles of incorporation have been filed at Jackson, Mich. The trus’. is protected by a duty of 35 per cent The next time President Harrison goes out to talk politics let him omit to mention'the rapid growth of the shoddy business under the McKinley law. —Louis* ▼ille Courier-Journal. The Chinese have sent his excels lency Lord Li as their minister plenipotentiary to Japan. This gentleman is a diplomatist, at least ia name.