Show THE TARIFF OX PIG IRON The Commercial Advertiser of New York has been discussing the question whether the tariff is a tax or not To prove that it is not it took pig iron and showed that it is cheaper in the United i Uni-ted States than in England We e are perfectly willing to accept its figures as correct It says that warrants for hematite pig iron a good No 1 foundry Iron were quoted on Monday in England at an equivalent of 11 per ton It therefore adds 2 a ton for freight insurance and other charges and 4 a ton for the total cost of a ton of pig iron free ex ship in New York 17 It adds another 3 as the cost to deliver it at Philadelphia Pitts burg Cincinnati Louisville Chicago SL Louis or Birmingham This would bring it up to 20 a ton It then gives quotations of No 1 American foundry on the same date attIre at-tIre places above mentioned At New York it was 1225 to 1250 Philadelphia Philadel-phia 1275 to 13 Pittsburg 1105 to 1175 Louisville 9 J to 975 Birmingham Birming-ham 925 to 950 S Having shown these facts it triumphantly tri-umphantly asks In view of these incontrovertible facts will some intelligent practical candid revenue reformer with average common sense tell us how the duty of 4 a ton on pig iron is a tax to that extent upon the American consumer Is it not cllr and indisputable that the price of pig iron is fixed in this country without any reference whatever what-ever to the cost of importing iron from Great Britain Assuming that these figures are correct cor-rect the tariff in this particular case is not a tax but it is not simply because be-cause it does not operate at all Still it puts it in the power of the manufacturers manufac-turers of pig iron to advance the price of it just the amount of the tariff in excess of freight and other charges The formation of a pig < iron trust could very soon do this If the production of pig iron in this country at this low price has been brought about as the result of the policy pol-icy of protection which we do not admit ad-mit then it has reached that stage when a tariff on pig iron is nothing more than an encumbrance on the statute book and it should be iepsaed Could anything be more absurd thin its retention now The cost of the production I duction of pig iron is so low now according ac-cording to the Advertisers figures that foreign competition is impossible It may be that the tariff is retained 11 II It out of mere gratitude a sort of pension pen-sion to an old servant I |