Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1891 — CURRENT COMMENT. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT COMMENT.

THE TIN PLATE INDUSTRY. PROTECTION DOES NOT DEPEND ON A - . SINGLE INDUSTRY FOR ITS ARGUMENTS. Joseph Nitnno, in New York Tribune. The New York Evening Post of May 16 denies my recent assertion in the Tribune that the tin plating industry called into being by the “McKinley bill” is likely to prove a success. Other free trade journals are also predicting and anxiously awaiting the demise of this new-born offspring of the protective policy. Their hopes appear to be based upon the fact that by some sort of combined action the Welsh tin plating monopoly will be able to crush the American enterprise in its cradle, notwithstanding the fact that about twothirds of the entire product of the English factories is exported to the United States, and that this country consumes more tin plate than all the rest of the world. It is estimated that the full development of the tin plating industry of this country would givel employment to about 35.000 American workmen, and afford a market for about 300,000 tons of American iron and the necessary quantity of American coal which would be consumed in those industries, and yield $15,000,000 annually in wages to A merican laborers. From the time when-independence was achieved British manufacturers have combined to reduce prices, in some instances sacrificing hundreds of thousands and even millions of pounds sterling in order to break down American industries in their infancy, and the free trade leaders in the United States have thrown up their hats in joy at the occurrence of such disaster. British parliamentary reports also have commented upon such results with approbation as evidence of the superiority of British enterprise. If the American tin plating infant is stricken down by such means, its little green grave will be more eloquent in 1892 than its survival. It is evident, however, that the Evening Post and its coadjutors have an ulterior object in view in this controversy, viz., to make it appear that the Republican position on the tariff question stands or falls with the tin plating industry, thus evading the whole issue. That can not be done. The Republican party stands for all that protection has done, for all that it is, for all that it implies, and on that line it proposes to go into action. Relatively the tin plating industry is a very small one. One hundred pounds of American tin plate consists of about ninety-seven pounds of American sheet iron or sheet steel, and three pounds of foreign tin imported free of duty. The tin plate protection is simply upon the process of coating the iron or steel with the molten tin.

The struggle to which the freetrade Democracy of this country is summoned in the coming presidential struggle is not with infants, but with the giant progeny of protection and their related interests. The freetrade force must make this fight or surrender at discretion. Consider our magnificent iron industry, which increased its annual product from 731,544 tons in 1861 to 10,307,028 in 1890. In 1882 we produced just half as much iron as Great Britain, but steadily gaining on her, in 1890 we came to “the front as the greatest iron producing nation oq the globe. In the way we are now proceeding we shall be able to supply the world with iron in 1900. If the free-traders of the United States want a fair and open fight, let them tackle this gigantic son of protection and stop trying to torment our infant industries. The woolen industry, the cotton industry, and a hundred other stalwart sons of protection also challenge the forces of free-trade to combat. In the development of this noble progeny the party of protection has proceeded in the course of nature —you must have babies if you would have men.

The total value of the products of American manufacture under inadequate protection amounted to 81,885,861,07(1 in 1860 and $5,369,579,191 in 1880. The census will, in all probability, show it to be fully $3,000,000,000 in 1890 under adequate protection. In a word, the Republican party under a protective policy during the space of thirty years carried to successful conclusion a war for the preservation of the union, costing four thousand million dollars, maintained the national credit and increased the national industry and the national wealth to four times their magnitude in 1861 under freetrade and inadequate protection during the preceding one hundred years. But as the coming political struggle hopefully is to be educational, al low. me to submit to all free-traders the following inquiries, which I shall number, and request that all such persons will paste them in the top of their hats so as to be available* for reflective thoughts: 'No. 1, Assuming that, as Mr. Cleveland and all other free-trade apostles say, the duty on any foreign import increases the price of the American product of likq kind by that amount, then the McKinley tariff duty of 15 cents a bushel on corn puts over $300,000,000 into the pockets of American farmers each yea , upon the basis of the product or 1839, viz.. 2,112.892,000 bushels. By similar computation the duties on all products of agriculture will put over $800,000,000 annually into the pcekets of American farmers. If any free-trader objects to this mode of stating the results of his doctrine, ’ will he be so kind as to inform the American people just where that docj tru t begins and where ft ends and . why? 1

I No. 2. Free-traders say that wc cant export unless we import. Bui during the last ten years jthe value of our exports to free-trade Great Britain have been 133 per eent.greater than the value of our imports from that country, and have yielded a bal ance of $,286,000,000 in our favor. No. 3. They say protection depresses foreign commerce. Let us see about that. Under the most protective tariff which has ever been adopted by an enlighted nation we increase our imports from $289,000,000 in 1861 to $789,000,000 in 1890, and our total foreign commerce from $508,864,000 in 186Lto $1,647,139,09c in 1890. The increase during thirty years of adequate protection was more than double the foreign commerce secured during one hundred years of inadequate protection and free trade. Please to observe, Mr. Free-trader, that tbere is a wide distinction between a protective tariff and a pronibitory tariff—-in practice it is much wider than between free trade and a prohibitory tariff. No. 4. They say that protection is detrimental to agriculture. Let us see about that. Our total cereal product increased from 932,000,000 bushels in 1862 to 3,209,000,000 bushels in 1889. The value of our entire agricultural product, other than cotton, in 1890 was three times Its value in 1860. But our home markets developed by protection have enabled us to take up this enormous increase, so that our exports of products of agriculture, • exclusive of cotton, although amounting in value to $379,000,000 in 1890, constituted only about 6 percent, of our total -product. In a word, the developed home market, mainly the result of protection, took three times ’the agricultural product of 1860, and tho consumptive demand in this country is growing faster than production . No. 5. Free traders talk a great deal about tariff reform. But tho Republican party has done a great deal in the direction reform. Here is the various “war tariff acts,” pd|Hpn order to save the life of the iraroon and preserve its credit, reduced the free list to $15,147,618, or 4£ per cent, of the total value of our imports in 1868, but the Republican party by its various reform measures increased tho free list to $226,102,778, or 34 per cent, of the total value of imports in 1890. The McKinley bill, the greatest reform measure of all, increased the free list from 34 to about 50 per cent, of the total value of our imports. Our present tariff makes cocoa, farina, sago, tapioca, tea, coffee and sugar free and gives every poor man in the country a free breakfast table. It gives the farmer free fertilizers, free animals for breeding purposes and free grass seeds. It gives all the people free quininq, and hundreds of other articles the free importation of which does not interfere with the development of the national industry. What has the free-trade party to offer the country in the direction of tariff reform worthy to be compared with this careful adjustment of our tariff laws to national wants and national experiences? In considering these grand results and these great questions which confront us, how small, comparatively, does the infant tin-plate industry appear. We are entering on the greatest tariff debate which has ever commanded the attention of the American people. To the Evening Post and all other free traders I desire to say, please to address yourselves to heroic -work and stop teasing our babies.