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Show Kcouoruist, and more ttiau luroe (iiues greater than the amount professedly given by the McKiulev bill. The $10 per ton in excess of the adequate ade-quate protective duty as denned by the protectionists is the safe and sure margin mar-gin within which they may and do establish the prices at which they will sell their rails. These are not exceptional cases. They are but fair and average illustrations of the existing tariff law, and stamp that law not a protective but a monopoly tariff. "I I S PQjJNp OF FLESH. THP M'KINLEY TARIFF A MEASURE FOR THE MONOPOLIST. Congressman V. L. Wilson, of West Virginia, Vir-ginia, aud Ui Fi-onnuncoU Views. Should Any tine Be Taxed In Support "Infant Iuilillries?" Congressman V. L. Wilson, of West Virginia, in a letter to the St Louis Republic Re-public showa that the McKinley tariff on iron ami steel is not a protective but a monopoly tariff: The American Economist is the organ of the American Protective Tariff league. More perhaps than any other journal, it may be taken as the official mouthpiece ' of the protected industries, and any con cessions it makes are always made with ample reservations to those industries. It is publishing just now what it calls "Short Tariff Sermons," evidently designed de-signed for the use of the country newspapers news-papers s an elementary statement of the case for protection. It defines protection as "that system of tariff legislation which levies duties on imports, such as are adequate to establish es-tablish and maintain industries, insuring high wages to laborers." This definition clearly implies that a protected industry indus-try is a burden upon the other and self supporting industries of the country, which are taxed to "establish and maintain" main-tain" it. As it is allowed to determine and dictate the amount of .taxes it will require for its establishment and maintenance, main-tenance, it is very desirable that we should ascertain from unquestionable authority how far a protected' industry is justified in pushing its exactions. We are glad therefore that The Economist Econ-omist lays down the principle that "the amount of protection is determined by the difference between the cost of production pro-duction at home and abroad," and that it makes it plain by the following illustration: illus-tration: "If because of high wages here it costs $:i0 to produce a ton of steel rails, and because of low wages it costs only $2(Hu England, the steel rails need a duty of $10 a ton to keep our mills open and to protect our own workmen from low wages. " This is all explicit enough, and it is gratifying to find that the framers of the McKinley bill accepted this same principle unreservedly and professed to have made it the rale by which they adjusted ad-justed the duties of that bill. "We have recommended no duty, said they in reporting the bill, "above the point of difference between the normal nor-mal cost of production here, including labor, and the cost of like production in the countries which seek our markets." Here, then, in sermon and in official report we have a statement of the full demand of protection. It calls for its own ponnd of riesh. Whatever it takes more than this pound is mere torture of its victims. In other words, a duty that . covers the difference of the cost of production pro-duction at home and abroad is protection. protec-tion. Whatever duty is less than this, they say, is not protection. And whatever what-ever is more than this, we may justly claim, is sheer bounty and tribute to monopoly. Now let us see how they keep faith with the people, when they arrange duties for the protection of their favorites. favor-ites. Heretofore both lawmakers and people have been dependent chiefly on such statements as interested parties chose to make before congressional committees com-mittees or elsewhere as to the cost of production and the comparative scale of wages here and in other countries. Fortunately for us now the department depart-ment of labor is carefully and methodically methodi-cally investigating these questions in some, of our most important industries, particularly in the iron and steel and textile industries. Its sixth annual re- port is devoted to an examination of the cost of producing iron and steel in this country and abroad. Let us first take pig iron. Taking the average of twenty-six blast furnaces in the northern district of the United States, the cost of all elements of production of run-of-the-miue pig was $13.94 per ton; in twenty-four furnaces in the southern district it was $10.75 per ton. In a typical typ-ical furnace ou the continent of Europe it was $11.03 per ton. The cost of producing pro-ducing pig iron in the south is thus somewhat some-what less than upon the continent, and .probably about the same as in England. In the north it is about S3 per ton greater, yet the McKinley bill fixes the duty at $6.73 per ton, which, if we add $3 for ocean freight, insures a protection protec-tion to the American producer of $8.72 per ton on his product; whereas, if he . produces in the south he needs no pro tection whatever, and if he produces in the north he needs at most but $3 per ton, according to the rule laid down by both The Economist and .Major McKinley McKin-ley and his colleagues. Let us also take The Economist's own illustration steel rails. The report 'finds that the actual cost of making standard steel rails in several of the largest establishments iu the United States "is, and has been for some time, within a few cents of $22 per ton at the works," and that in (ireat Britain it is a "sum not varying much from $1S per ton." Accordingly, making all allowances, allow-ances, it says the "difference between the lowest cost of British steel rails of sixty pounds to the yard and the lowest cost of the same grade of rails in the United States is in the vicinity of $-T per ton." Now, the McKinley bill, professing to recommend no duty above the difference in cost of production here and in the countries that seek our market, puts a duty of $13.44 per ton on steel rails, in-earing, in-earing, if we add ocean freight, a protection pro-tection to American makers of $15.44 per ton on a product that costs but $4 or $3 per ton more to mako here than in tireat Britain. I It is well known that a combination exists among the less than a dozen rail mills in the country by which they keep tip and dictate prices to purchasers. That combination is created and shielded shield-ed by this protection, which is more than three times greater than the imnnnt declared necessary by The ' 1 |
