Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1891 — The Furniture Trade and the Tax on Lumber. [ARTICLE]

The Furniture Trade and the Tax on Lumber.

At a time when a largo proportion of the people of-the United States were demanding free lumber, the McKinley tariff-mongers took occasion to levy duties upon every species of lumber that had previously been on the free list. Mahogany, rosewood, lignum vibe, and every variety of lumber used In manufacturing furniture and cabinet-ware, were removed from the free list and subjected to a duty of 15 per cent on the value. It was probably feared that if mahogany, rosewood and other tropical lumber should become too cheap and abundant, the use of pine, oak and cherry In making furniture for tho American people would be interfered with seriously. Why. it was asked, should the peeple of the Unfied States send to Central and South America and to other tropical regions for rare and costly woods, when they have at home an abundance of cheap materials for making fuiniture? In response to this question the McKinley statesmen clapped a duty of 15 per cent, upon the materials of numerous and important American industries. As a consequence of this malignantly stupid legislation the American raanufa' turers of cabinetware, who are unexcelled in taste and workmanship, have been put in a more unfavorable position than ever for competing with their European rivals in the world's markets. They cannot uso a stick of lumber, whether of foreign or of home production. that has not been enhanced In cost by tho tariff. While the beat woods of

the forests of Brazil and of Honduras are sent to Europe, American manufacturers must content themselves with cheaper domostic substitutes that are protected by a duty of 15 per cent No protectionist government in Europo imposes a tax upon the imported lumber used in the manufacture of household furniture. That stroke was reserved for the latter-day protectionist statesmen of the Unitod States, who, in their jea'ousy of everything foreign except imported pauper labor, would exclude foreign woods from use iu tho manufacture of cabinctware for tho American peoplo. The tatiff-enhanced cost of lumber discourages the consu option of its finished products and lessons th > opportunities of remunerative employment to the mechanics who work In wood. While the duties cheek tho importation of valuable foreign woods, they at the same time obstruct tho exportation of furniture. Of the exports of wood and its products in the last nlno months, amounting to nearly $19,0C0,000, household furnituro figured for a little more than $2,000,000. Nearly all the rest consisted of lumber to bo* wrought elsewhere into finished products. But this exportation of American furnituro in spite of tariff obstruction, small as It Is, shows what could be accomplished In this branch of trade if lumber should be placed on the free list.—Philadelphia Record.