Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1892 — The Borax Trust. [ARTICLE]

The Borax Trust.

All the borax obtained in this oountry cornea from Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington. It is, for the most part, dug out of the ground in a marketable condition. The labor employed is Chinese. The foreign article is obtained from the lagoons of Tuscany, and has to be crystallized, transported to England, refined and then shipped here. As there was no earthly excuse for any “protection,” the consumers—meat packers, soap makers, etc. —made an attempt to have toe duty removed in 1890. McKinley reduced the duty on crude borax from 5 cents to 3 cents per pound, but raised the duty on boracic acid, the form in which borax is generally imported, from 4 to 5 cents per pound. As might be exCected there is a Borax Trust, headed yF. M. Smith, of California, which, about five years ago, got control of nine-tenths of the producing mines, and, as might also have been expected, this trust was not .slow to utilize their "protection.* Four dftys after the bill went into effect it raised the price, which had been 8J to 8J cents per pound, in August and September, to 94 and 9$ cents. This price has been maintained since then. The way to break this is the way to break hundreds of other monopolies—abolish the tariff, so that the foreign product can be brought in.