Siemens steel bar makers in South Wales have on several occasions betrayed more than ordinary desire to "regulate" the supply of steel bars, the latest attempt having failed only last year. When prices reached over £7 per ton tinplate makers found themselves in great straits, when relief came in the form of American bars, at £4 10s. per ton. This enabled the Welsh Siemens tin bar makers to see their way to reduce prices by close upon £2 per ton. Here it is pertinent to ask, what would have been the position of the Welsh tinplate maker if a tariff upon tin bars had existed? The reply is obvious: They and the industry generally would suffer to benefit the few steel makers. Subsequent to this German bars came into use, and thousands of tons of foreign tin bars have been manufactured into galvanised sheets and tinplates in South Wales and Monmouth

shire.

This has given an opportunity to Tariff Reformers to wax eloquent over the loss caused by "dumping." I would here say that "dumping" is an evil born of Protection, and not of Free Trade, and that the real sufferers from the practice are those in a Protectionist country, who in this case tax themselves to supply cheap steel to foster our tinplate and galvanising industries. So far from suffering a loss, all our Siemens steel works during last year were employed to their utmost capacity; the difficulty was not to get orders, but to cope with them.

Galvanised Sheet Trade.

consider

Mr.

But the cheap steel from America and Germany has stimulated both the tinplate and galvanised sheet trade. At Cardiff, in November, 1903, Mr. Chamberlain told his hearers that Mr. Lysaght, of Newport, had bought 50,000 tons of foreign steel bars, at ably lower price than they could be bought in the district.” Lysaght has been doing a great deal of the same kind of thing since, and I have no doubt that this is a contributory cause to Lysaghts being now the largest sheet works in Wales and Monmouthshire. The expansion of the galvanised sheet trade is shown by the following figures of exports:

It is not possible to say how far cheap foreign steel has influenced this increased business, but it is coincident with the introduction of cheap foreign steel into this country.

The Siemens steel bar trade, we are told, has been "hurt" by dumping." We find that throughout last year all of the furnaces were worked to their utmost capacity, and new ones were erected, and there are good reasons for saying that few concerns in the Kingdom can show the profits made in this "hurt" industry.

The following is a wage list taken from the pay book of a works where average wages are earned by steel workers. The list is one paid at the smelting shop:

This, it will be admitted, is not a bad wage in a "hurt" industry. The men of the rolling mill are paid in about the same proportion. On the ground that this much "hurt" trade was so prosperous, the men's Union decided to demand an advance of 10 per cent. on these wages in January, 1906.

Steel Works' Dividends.

I now submit some evidence to show how the employers fare. It is on record that the dividends paid by one of the steel works said to have been injured are as follow:-

For the year ending March, 1901, 67 per cent.

1902, 45
1903, 45

1904, 45
1905, 45

An average dividend over five years of 49 per cent. But this does not represent all the profit made, for a portion had been invested, and the total profit represented an average of 71 per cent. for five years. In 1905 a number of the fully-paid up £10 shares of this concern were put up for auction, and realised from £35 to £40 per share. This proves that investors do not seem to be afraid of the effects of "dumping" in so far as they affect this industry.

These various facts, which are only, as it were, samples taken almost at random from amongst a large amount of similar data, all tend to prove most strongly that the tinplate trade and its recent history are the very reverse of object lessons in favour of Protection.

The American Industry.

We shall now deal with the American tinplate industry, born of Protection and fed and nurtured upon tariffs. The Americans made tinplates as far back as 1873, when a works was erected at Welsville, Ohio. Two others were subsequently built, and for some years successfully continued to produce tinplates, but these works came

upon bad times when Welsh makers, as the result of greater economy in working, brought about by improved machinery, were able to sell plates at a price which put the Americans out of the market.

The Americans have always cast longing eyes at the Welsh industry, which found its largest customer in their country. In 1864 they passed a Tariff Bill, placing the tariff at the exact figure subsequently fixed by the McKinley Tariff Act, viz., 2 cents per lb. The Tinplate Tariff Act of 1864 demonstrated in a remarkable way that it is often upon trifles that the welfare of a people depends when a Legislature interferes with the free course of trade. That tariff of 2 cents per lb. became inoperative simply on account of the misplacing of a comma. The clause read:-" On tinplates, and iron galvanised, or coated with any metal by electric batteries, or otherwise, two and a half cents per pound." Mr. Fossender, Secretary of the Treasury, not knowing tinplates from tin, decided that there had been an error in punctuation, that the comma after "plates" should be removed and placed after " iron," in order to give the true meaning of the paragraph, holding that tinplates as well as iron must be galvanised or coated in order to bear a duty of 2 cents a pound. So that it was a simple comma that saved a prohibitory tariff from being imposed on tinplates in 1864.

A Prohibitory Tariff.

However, that was accomplished in 1890, when the McKinley Act was passed. It is an acknowledged fact that not even in the history of the United States had so important a change of tariff taken place with so little inquiry. Manufacturers, big and little, were permitted to settle the duties on their own articles, and the Secretary of the American Tinplate Manufacturers' Association was allowed to fix the rate of duty on tinplates just to suit himself, and this he modestly put at an advance of 150 per cent. on the then existing tariff. On a box of tinplates sold at that time at Liverpool at 12s. 6d. this tariff amounted to 11s. 3d., and it was, as it was intended to be, prohibitory.

A tariff was also placed on block tin, with the avowed object of establishing a tin-mining industry at Harney Peak, and other districts. For the easier passing of the McKinley Bill a clause was inserted that the tariff was not to be maintained on block tin unless 5,000 tons were produced in the States by July 1st, 1895. Another clause provided that unless one-third of all imported plates in one year be made before 1897, tinplates would then be admitted free. It was to maintain a semblance of meeting this provision that the American Treasury descended to most discreditable practices. immediate effect of the operation of the Act on industries dependent upon tinplates and in other directions, justifies the assertion that it was the maddest piece of fiscal legislation ever carried out either by an English or American Legislature. When the Act was passed in October, 1890, practically no tinplates were made in the United States. Yet it placed a tariff of 11s. 3d. per box on the six million boxes of tinplates that were essential every year to farmers, fruit

The

growers, and packing industries to preserve the fruitful products of the land, and also for utensils used in every home in the country.

Artificial Prices.

To lighten the blow, the operation of the Act was delayed for six months, but this only gave a further opportunity for merchants and others to exploit the American people. Buyers of tinplates purchased ahead all plates that could possibly be produced. Makers rushed up mills and rushed out all kinds of plates; anything bearing the semblance of tinplates was packed off. When the Act came into operation Welsh tinplates were quoted at Liverpool at 17s. 8d. per box; six months after the Act had been in operation they were quoted at 12s. 6d., the difference of 5s. 2d. representing the artificial price created. But the Americans had to take millions of plates in the preceding two years at some such additional price.

Nine months after the operation of the Act only 1 per cent. of the plates consumed in America were of home production, the other 99 per cent. had to be imported from Wales as before. Now it has

been computed from this that the Americans had to pay an additional £2,310,000 a year for their tinplate, and this continued as long as the McKinley Tariff was in operation, i.e., until the Wilson Tariff Act was passed, October 24th, 1894.

But the Americans had established their tinplate industry?— Yes, at a price. In the same way grapes can be grown on Snowdon. The American masses revolted against being thus exploited, they returned the Democrats the low tariff party-into power, and they elected Cleveland President. The tariff was reduced, but the effect of interfering with the business of the country had to be paid for. Business was bad, trade was stagnant, commercial men were ruined. But the wealthy were again able to use both Press and platform to show that the Wilson Bill, with its low tariff, was at the root of the evil, with the result that they got the Dingley Bill passed in 1897. This operates to-day, and now the tinplate tariff stands at 13 cents per lb. A competent authority states that between 1891 and 1902 the Americans paid £20,000,000 more for this tinplate than they need have done but for tariff.

Tariff Evils.

Tariffs give birth to a whole train of evils. One of these is the bringing of Trusts into existence. Protection makes Governments hold the hands of the people while these giants fleece them, the central idea of a Trust being to kill all healthy competition. The United States Steel Corporation, with something like 500,000,000 dollars property, was capitalised at something over a billion and a half. This difference between the capitalisation and property value gives an idea of what value is set by capitalists on the power to tax the people, and a writer aptly says, "the property in their judgment was worth one-third, and the power to tax the people was considered worth two-thirds of the whole capitalisation, and it comes about that the right to tax the American people is bought and sold every day in the open market."

The Trust's tariff profit is said to amount to 75,092,589 dollars, about one-fourth of the selling price of steel goods being due to Protection. It charges 28 dollars for steel rails to Americans, and sells to foreigners at 20 dollars. It charges the Americans over 4 dollars per box for tinplates, and taxes its own workmen to help to supply the foreigners with tinplates at 3 dollars per box. It owns more than four-fifths of the iron ore mines of the North-West, 1,000 miles of railroads, and transports 10,000,000 tons of ore on its own vessels, and employs 160,000 men.

It dictates prices and conditions under which manufacturers dependent upon it for raw material can do business. They must buy only of it, must transport over all its railroads, and deal only with its banks, and often have to sell their product at prices fixed by the Trust. This is what Protection has brought about in the steel trades of America, and let there be but a tariff wall erected around Great Britain and we would see other such giants brought into being in this country to fleece the poor in the interests of the rich.

Qualities Contrasted.

The American Trust owns 252 tinplate mills, with a producing capacity of 200,000 tons per week. It will have been noted that I have been able to speak highly of the quality of Welsh tinplate produced under the stress of free competition. Not so with regard to the quality of American tinplate produced in the land of monopoly, the complaints about which bear out all that has been said of the evils prevailing in a protected and pampered industry.

Mr. Paul L. Biersach, Milwaukee, Wis., states:-"We are now testing in a very simple manner five 'old style' plates, and find that not one of them is free from rust in five days after they are exposed to the weather. We never experienced so many pinholes in plates as we do at the present time, and we use best American plates, at least those proclaimed to be so."

Mr. Alfred Bourlier, president of the Louisville Roofing Company, wrote:-"If something is not done at once towards getting better quality of plate, roofing tin will, in my opinion, be a thing of the past."

At a meeting of the National Canners' Association, held in February, 1905, Professor E. Duckwall gave a lecture on canned goods, in the course of which he said: "There are corn packers all over this country whose corn is discoloured with black streaks along the sides, caused by the black oxides of iron which are not protected by a sufficient coating of tin. Some plates are so poor that even natural paste will discolour the labels. It has even come to a point where ripe fruits cannot be canned because the salicylic acid in them will be turned a light violet by the iron in the tin, and the iron will unite with the salicylic acid which is present in nearly all fruit. It is time canners were taking concerted action in order to obtain better plate. If there is not some such action taken very soon there may be serious consequences."

So bad is the state of things that makers now offer guarantees