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Show FREE IRON ORE. Surely -the Duty oo the Imported Should Be Reduced. A valued correspondent calls Tha Record's attention to the fact that a considerable con-siderable number of furnaces in the east use Lake Superior iron ore. The ore is chiefly used for the same purpose for which ores imported from Africa and Cuba are requited, namely, for mixture with lean and inferior local ores. This affords all the more reason why the duty on imported ore should be repealed. re-pealed. With the duty removed the foreign ore could be delivered for much less than the cost of Lake Superior ores transported by rail to the seaboard. There would be a more extensive use of the local ores4or mixing with the imported im-ported Bessemar ores, and thus the mine owners of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey would be benefited instead of injured by putting ore on the free list. The chief effect, if not the purpose, of this duty on iron ore is to give the manufacturers man-ufacturers of I:essemer pig iron west of the Alleghaniei a considerable advantage over their competitors in eastern Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania because of their nearness to the Lake Superior region. But it is not the business of an equitable government thus to discriminate against the manufacturers manu-facturers of otw region for the benefit of the manufacturers in other regions of the country. By the duty on iron ore the natural advantage to eastern manufacturers manu-facturers of situation on the seaboard is taken away. By removing the duty the manufacturers manufactur-ers of Bessemer steel in eastern Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, drawing their supplies of ore from the sea, and the western manufacturers, manufac-turers, drawing their supplies from Lake Superior, would each be enabled to enjoy en-joy their natural advantages of iQeatjon-Senator iQeatjon-Senator Cuiloai, of Illinois, does not advocate ad-vocate this duty for the sake of "protection," "protec-tion," but in order to give the manufacturers manufac-turers of Bessemer steel in Chicago an unfair advantage over their eastern rivals. The difference in price between English Eng-lish and American steel rails does not hy any means represent the difference in cost of production. Behind the duty of $13.14 a ton net the steel rail combination com-bination is able to maintain the price of steel rails against American consumers far above the level of legitimate profits. But, in spite of the combination, year by year the home market of eastern manufacturers is becoming more narrow by reason of western competition.- Philadelphia Phil-adelphia Record. I |