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Show O HH GUARDING THE PRIZE PIG. H H In 188S the average price of steel M rails was a little over twenty-nine dol- iM lars a ton. In the next ten years the U cost of making rails at the Carnegie !H mills declined about fifty per cent; iH but the price did not decline fifty per cent or any per cent whatever. IBJ In 1901 we were told that the Steel 'AJ Trust would effect important savings BJ in mill cost. Since th:n the volume ;BJ of trade, as measured by pig iron, BJ has. increased sixty per cent, which BJ is favorable to lower mill cost. But BJ the price of rails docs not fall. The BJ pool monopoly holds it firm at twen- B ty-eight dollars. Prices of other pro- BJ ducts have rather advanced. ' BJ Any steel man will scout the idea BJ that we do not produce steel cheaper BJ than the foreigner. While producing J cheaper we must still have the tariff, J in some mysterious way, to prevent a U fall in wages through competition ' BJ with Europe's pauperized labor. BJ In 189.3, commenting upon Republi- BJ can defeat, which was attributed J largely to the bloody Homestead BJ strike of the year before, President BJ Harrison said the fact that the work- BJ men's wages were the highest in the BJ world, due to protection, was "obs- BJ cured by the passions evoked by the BJ contest." H But the Homestead strike resulted BJ in a reduction of these wages. The BJ great decline in cost of making rails BJ at the Carnegie mills was due in part BJ to the readjustment of wage scales BJ which the overthrow of the unions BJ made possible. The tariff did not pro- BJ tect "excessive" wages. It merely , BJ protected excessive profits. i H We mention these things, incident- , BJ ally, because results achieved in the J BJ iron trade in 1906 have been so fond- k H ly trotted out as vindicating high j BJ protection the most notable of said i H achievements consisting of the vast ' BJ net profits of the trust. BJ Saturday Evening Post. I --. ... J-tal |
