Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1891 — A TARIFF ROBBERY. [ARTICLE]

A TARIFF ROBBERY.

HOW A ROBBER GOT $200,000 y FROM WOMEN. Why Fruit-Jars Have Been High—A Combination to Put Up Prices - One Manufacturer Scoops in a Fortune of Tariff Spoils—Pittsburg Grocers Protest Against Trusts—McKinley’s Protected Britishers —A Merry Monopolist. Cause of Their Cost. Why havo fruit jars cost so much dur lug the present season’ That is the questio 1 that many good housewives have fccon asking themselves. With excel'ent fri it going to decay because they were not able to pay the high prices fur jars, they have looked ftrward with a foe ing of regiot for the pies of canned peaches, apples and other kinds of fruit which they will miss next winter. Do our women know what there is behind this great riso in the price of, jars? It is a trust, a tariff trust, and it lia; taken adva tage of the largo fruit crop to collect tho protective tariff spoils which the McKinleyites havo guaranteed to it The tariff on g ass jars for fr< it is 40 per cent on the best kinds and r till higher on the cheaper grades. Besides this, glass jars are very expensive things to pack and ship, being very liable to break in handling; and as the new law makes i o allowance for glass broken in shipment from abroad, unless the part broken is as much as one tenth of the whole, the domestic manufacturers got the benefit of still higher protection.. Whenever, therefore, an importer buys £lO worth of glass fruit jars in Europe he isiorapelled to pay £4 and more as a penalty for bringing them into this country. This £4 is then added to the priee of the jars and it keeps on accumulating in the hands of the various dealers till it reaches the farm where this tax is finally paid. Every dealer gets back the tariff price he paid ana more; the farmer's wifo has no way of getting hers back—she foots the entire bill and pockets the loss This is a fair specimen of protective tariff taxes. The fruit jar tax was imposed to keep foreign jars from competing with those made here, and it accomplishes this so thoroughly that wo do not import enough of these jars to make them worth mention in the Government reports. Foreign jars were to le kept out in order to encourage domestic manufacturers, and this object |s also accomplished, as is shown by the way in which these precious domestic manufacturers have combined and put tip prices during tho past few months. Cue of the men in this fruit-jar trust made a snug fortune this summer. The story is told |n a late number ot the National -Glais Budget, an organ published in th» interests of the glassmakers. This paper prints an account of the resumption of work after the summer rent in the fruit jar factories. The factories opened, says the Budget, In the midit of tho wildest boom in tho glass trade since 1879. * * * Behind the boom there is a most interesting story of how Whitney Bros., of the Whitney Glass Works, at Glassboro, N. J., have scooped up a c.'ear profit “Two years ago Whitney Bros, found themselves in a position where it was to their advantage to take tho entire product of an outside factory which ran on jars for them. Tho Whitneys’ own mills continued to turn out the usual amount, and the trade looked with horror ypon the jars, which were piled up into tho thousand gross. “At tho beginning of the season a combination was made in which it was agreed to maintain the price at $7.50 a gros'. The Whitneys were in, but even this combination did not let the others rest easy. hen the boom came the Whitneys had about 45,000 gross of lars on hand, and they were the masters of the situation. Up jumped the price. It rose quickly from £7 to 57.50, to £8.50, to £10.50, to £11; and to £11.50, and still Whitney Bros, had thousands of jars. They ctmld uot ship thorn fast enough to check the rise. From five to fifteen , carloads have been going daily from the storehouses in Glassboro and balom, and yet but a small fraction of the demand was met. Prices continued to jump, and Ti:e day offers a 3 high as £l2 and £l4 a gross were made without securing the jars. The resumption of work at the factories will have no appreciable effect on the market. ” This is a distinct case of tariff robbery. Any one can see that if the protective tariff did not prevent the importation of foreign made jars there would have been a supp y of them here to meet the large demand, and that the New Jersey men could not then have fleeced the women of £200,000. In order to “encourage domestic industry” the McKinley ites turn over all the farmers’ wives to th 3 tendey mercy of a grasping monopoly made up of a few jar manufacturers Is it not a sin and a shame thus to put it into tho power of a half dozen men to lay tribute upon thousands of households?