Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1891 — DIVIDING OUT TARIFF SPOILS. [ARTICLE]

DIVIDING OUT TARIFF SPOILS.

Steel Ball Manufacturer* Meet to Make “Allotments.” The Steel Rail Association, otherwise known as the steel rail trust, has recently held a meeting and appointed a committee of two, representing Eastern and Western mills, to report on a n6w “allotment” of percentages. A large new rail mill has been started near Baltimore, and it is necessary for the trust to give it an “allotment” in order to avoid “ruinous competition.” Under the present arrangement all orders for rails are divided up among the trust's mills upon the following basis:. The Pennsylvania Company, 9 per cent.: the Lackawanna, 18; the Bethlehem and the Columbia, 8 each; Andrew Carnegie's Company and the Illinois Steel company, 57 per cent jointly. This little coterie of rail manufacturers can safely make their “allotments” anal l divide up among them the spoils which the tariff puts into their coffers. The duty is .$13.44 a ton, which is e;ual to 65 per cent, of the price of rails in England to day. At the beginning of this year the rail trust mot and put up prices, and these have been tirmly adhered to ever since. The price at Chicago is $31.50 a ton in large lots, or $32.50 in sma’l quantities. The price now quoted at Middlesboro, England, is £4 ss, equal to $20.64 per ton. This is a big tariff difference. But oh, says the high-tariff wiseacre, don’t you know the foreigner pays the steelrail tax? Let us see: We imported during the year ended June 32, 1891. just 134 tons of steel rails, valued at $6479, the duty on which, at $13.44 a ton, would amount to .11,600.96. On the other hand, ou- rail mills turned out during the calendar year 1890 about 2, 00,000 tons of ralis. This quantity at the present Chicago price would cost $69,30.',000; at the English price $45,518,000, a difference of $23,762,000. Do the English manufacture s pay our steel-rail tax, or do our railroads pay it?