Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1893 — Tariff on Raw Material. [ARTICLE]

Tariff on Raw Material.

The claim that the tariff encourages industry is nowhere more conclusively exploded than in the numerous and flagrant instances in, which we impose tariffs upon the raw i materials of our manufactures. The, tariff on raw materials—coal, iron, copper, tin, lead, lumber, wool—is not mejely (1) a tax on the laboring man, making his fuel and clothing, as well as his tools and every article of furniture, cost him more than it! otherwise would, but (2) directly reduces the profitable opportunity and demand for labor, and therefore helps to paralyze industry. As to (1) it is so well. understood that it needs but a word. The tariff enables the owners of raw materials to Charge more than they otherwise' could. If it did not, there would be no use for a tariff. The manufacturer having to pay more for his materials, his manufactured goods cost him more than they otherwise would, and he has to sell them for more to make a profit. Every suit of clothes costs the buyer more, because of ‘the duty on wool. Every tin pan costs the economical housekeeper more, every tin roof increases the rent-of the victims that are under it, every can of tomatoes or oysters Costs more because of 'the tax on tin plates. Every yard of calico costs the woman that wears it more because of the tax on dye-stuffs; every pound of paint costs more becauseof -the tax on lead; every house costs more because of the tax that is levied on the materials of which it is composed. The result of this is, that the wages of the workman are deminished —that is, he gets less goods for a -day’s work. But the seooDd effect of the tariff on raw materials is a still more se-rious-one. Even if our people alone were to be considered, it is plain that the higher the price of any article the fewer will be sold—fewer people can afford to buy it. And since the demand fqr labor depends upo.n how many goods are to be made (and not-on how much profit the manufacturer makes on each piece), it is easy to see that taxed raw materials redwee the demand for labor and the number of men employed. But this is not the worst. The high price of raw materials caused by the tariff (25 , per cent, on coal, 40 per cent, on iron-ore, 75 pey cent, on tin plates, 40 per cent, oh copper, 20 per cent, on lumber, 50 to 100 per cent, on wool) makes them cost more to our manufacturers, who, therefore, cannot make goods as cheaply as they otherwise could; and hence, cannot afford to sell them as cheaply as do the English, and Germans, who get their raw'materials free. It therefore is the English and Germans, and not ourselves, who supply the rest of the world-ah large with manufactured goods.—Mon. John DeWitt Warner.