Show A Free Trader Objects In a freetratle communication which has been accorded space in the Engineering Engi-neering and Mining Journal a writer from Cincinnati says Sir Your remarks In your issue of June 23rd or the proposal of the Utah smelters to form a trust or combine to artificially advance or keep up the price of lead are timely and to the point A greater mistake could not be made The productive capacity of this country in the mining and smelting of lead together with the Improved methods meth-ods and intelligent manipulation practiced prac-ticed by our skilled operatives have at last enabled us to compete for the markets mar-kets of the world not only In this but In other metals also The protective duties originally enacted by our Congress Con-gress to foster this Industry have now ceased to br1 a necoasary factor In assuring as-suring a reasonable profit to our producers pro-ducers Copper once amply protected by i a heay duly Is now turned out of our mines and reduction works more cheaply than by any other country in the world so also are spelter and lead to say nothing of iIg lion But owing to the tariff on the latter metals we see them shipped to foreign buyers very often at lower prices than the home consumer con-sumer can purchase for This is a manifest man-ifest Injustce to our domestic manufacturers manu-facturers Tho time has como for the repeal of the tariff on hIt of these metals met-als us Is the case with copper The writer has alwuyx been a protectionist and Is one now but the moment we attain the condition that enables us to produce an article especially the raw material as cheaply as the foreign article ar-ticle that moment the duty upon it should be abolished The fluctuations in prices incident to time existence of a tariff on an article that can be turned out of our mnS furnaces or factories at cheaper rates than the foreign product pro-duct Is a constant menace to the stability sta-bility of business affairs Tho assumptions on which the writer seeks to to busf his conclusions are all wrong In the first place the local producer pro-ducer cannot compete with those of Mexico and similar countries In that as a fundamental advantage the latter lat-ter employ a class of labor that In some localities ilnds It possible lo I thrive on wages not exceeding 61 i l cents a ijay A tariff has been the salvation of the American leadmining Industry and for any one lo contend that it could exist In competition with the cheap labor la-bor of outside countries Is laboring under un-der most serious misapprehension |