Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1888 — The fariff and "Trusts” [ARTICLE]

The fariff and "Trusts”

' The men who have assumed the task of tearing down the barriers, by which our markets are defend-jedj-andrjbetter-Returns for labor insured, seem determined to make the policy of Protection odious by falsely char ging it with responsibility for every unpopular condition which the business of the country experiences. / '

Among the more recently discovered evils of a protective policy to which these free trade advocates point is the alleged fostering of “trusts." But here, as else, where, facts are against them, as will be seen by a glance at history past and present. --“Trusts," dr f'pqols,” or combinations by Whatever name, are far from being modern contrivances for control ing prices, and are by no means confined to the United States. In fact the “trust” of today is of English origin; and unfortunately for the free trade advocate’s purpose, did not come into prominence in England until 1848—two years after the adoption by that nation of Ijer exfeting free trade "policy. This combination was iirthe tin mining district of Cornwall and Devonshire, and was intended to effect the price of a metal on which there was no tariff!: Coming down to the present: the great copper “trust,” which recently succeeded in carrying up prices to an unprecedented figure, originated in France, where tlierp are do copper mines sq protect. England to-day has a coal oil trust, though no oil wells, and nb tariff on coal oil. Canada, like ourselves, Jias a sugar trust, while allowing sugar to enter her ports free of duty. Here in the United States our most formidable “trust" is the Standard oil company, with coal oil on the free list. (It may be well to remember that the present Secretary of the Navy is a member of the Standard oil combination.) Then again, we have the Coffee “trust,” which has succeeded iq materially increasing the price of coffee within the past year and a half, while every one who cares to inquire knowmtlmt coffee has been on the free list since 1873.

In the face of facts like these, it is daily charged that “trusts” — inherited from England, and flourishing as never before under the present pro-British administration —are an joutgrowth of the American protective policy. The same free trade adyocates, with unabashed inconsistency, charge against a protective tariff that it materially increase? the prices of protected products. This, if true, would operate to render cqmbinations all tlie more difficult, by requiring increased capital for holding and arpitrarily forcing up the prices of commodities. The real truth is that all these commercial combinations, like those between railroad managers, are very little, if at all, affected by customs laws; aud the evils uHth which they threaten the country are to be averted by National and State legislation, rendering all combinations’ more difficult, and keeping every business avenue open to untrammelled competition. This appeal of free trade advocates to the general prejudice against “trusts” but betrays the absence of facts and arguments in support of the unpatriotic policy they espoused,, ami will Receive none bus the unthipking.