The Prey Of Monopoly

Piano making is one of the few industries of this country which are indifferent to protection and care nothing for foreign competition. While nominally protected, the manufacturers are entirely independent of tariff benefits. Of course theïe has always been a tariff upon pianos, but not at the solicitation of the manufacturers. Where a new tariff has been introdnced the duty has been reiained, more on account of general principies than because the manufacturers lave invaded the halls of congress, demanding protection for an "infant industry." In no hearings on the tariff nave they appeared and demanded an increase, or even a retention of old duties. On the contrary, they have relied upon their own skill and enterprise For protection, and the result has justiSed their course, for more pianos have been exported every year than have been imported, and we have sent some of our best productions to the greatest musical country of the world - Germany herself. We began to manufacture pianos over ninety years ago. The " industry has grown rapidly, the produotion last year being doublé what it was ten years ago. Last year we made about 72,000 pianos, and it is estimated that since 1820 we ttave made 1,210,000. The census returns of 1890 are not yet published, but it is estimated that we now have 200 faetones engaged in turning out pianos or parts used in them - such as keys, wires, ictions, etc. The estimated capital of these factories is $15,000,000, employing 10,000 workmen at wages of $6,500,000 a year, using $9,000,000 worth of material, and turning out a product worth $18,000,000. New York alone has abont twothirds of the factories, Massachusetts ranking neit. While the piano industry has no interest in protection for itself, protection lays numerous burdens upon that industry. In fact it is made a prey to the greed of several minor industries which have, under the McKinley law, tiigher protection than ever before. These increased duties are specimen tricks in the new tariff law, and they deserve attention f rom the people au large as illustrating the rapacity of tariff protected interests. The first of the parts used in piano making which are subject to higher duties under the McKinley law are the tuning pins to which the strings are atr tached. The old duty on these pins was 25 per cent. It was first proposed by McKinley to make the ducy 40 per cent., along with "pianos and pianoforte actions, and parts of." This paragraph was constructed at the loud solicitation of the action makers, who, though they had no interest at all in tuning pins, were very anxious to construct the paragraph affecting their own productions so broadly that they themselves might be secure from competition, with the result that they included everything used in piano manufacture. But they demanded that the duty be fixed at 50 instead of 40 per cent., and when the bill went to the senate they accomplished their purposes in part by having the whole paragraph struck from the schedule. The result was that tuning pins were made dutiable at 45 per cent. , and the price was at once put up to $3.20 per thousand, having been $2.40. A similar tiïck was performed in regard to the feit which is put on the hammers. There is only one factory engaged in the production of piano feit in the United States - that of Mr. Alf red Dolge, of Dolgeville, N. Y. - the annual production of which, according to Mr. Dolge, is about 300,000 pounds. England has two factories, France two and Germany four. The only piano feit imported into the United States comes from Gennany, and amounts to from 25,000 to 30,000 pounds per year, so that only one-tenth of the feit used here is imported. Piano feit paid a duty under the old law of thirty-five cents a pound and 40 per cent. , equal to a single ad valorem of 67 per cent., being taxed as "manufactures of wool nototherwise provided for." The duty in this paragraph in the McKinley bill was made forty-four cents a pound an8 50 per cent. When, however, the bill was in the conference committee of the house and senate, Mr. Dodge, acting through Senator Hiscock, had the three little words, "felts not woven," put into the ready made clothing paragraph, bearing the highest duty of all the manufactures of wool - 49L cents a pound and 60 per cent. Mr. Dolge's protection by this trick is made almost absolute. Under the old tariff the duty paid on 100 pounds of feit was $122, under the McKinley law $191. Some importers have already raised the price of foreign feit one dollar a pound. The greedy Dolge had two objects in view with his tariff trick: (1) To shut out all foreign competition, and (2) being a manufacturer of hammers also, to drive out of business all the manufacturers here of piano hammers who have been using imported telt. The result is that he will be free from all competition whatever in the American market. At the same time he will continue to export feit to Germany as he has done in the past, on all of which feit drawbacks of duties will be paid by the United States government. For the benefit of the three establishments engaged in making ivory piano keys a similar increase of duty was made. These establishments impor$ their elephants' tusks free of duty, and had 30 per cent. protection before McKinley carne and gave them 40 per cent. A set of ivory keys now costs the maTinfactnTers one dollar more than under the old duty. The next item is music wire. Here tbe McKinleyites made it appear that they were reducing the dnty. In the wire schednle the dnty on one of the sizes of wire used for strings was rednced from 2i cents a pound to 2J cents, the other size being left unchanged. Bnt at the end of the wire schednles a paragraph was added placing a dnty of 45 per cent. on all iron and steel wire worth more than four cents a pound. Now piano wire is worth from thirty to forty cents a pound abroad. Thus the okl rates of dury. equal to an ad valorem of 11 per cent. on smaller wire and 14 on tüe larger sizes, give place to a 45 per cent. rate, which means increasing the rates over 300 per cent. on the flner, and over 200 on the coaraer wire. Where the piano mannfacturers paid 2L cents a poxand duty under the old law they now pay over eight cents, and where they paid three cents they now pay over twelve cents. The kind of wire used for piano strings is made by one or two eatablishments in the United States, the most important of which is Washburn & Moen, who control important patents and were the chief movere in the fonnation of the barbed wire trust. Just as soon as the McKinley tariff went into effect the price of music wixe was raised. Dealers at once changed their lists, and wire which cost the piano manuf acturers fif ty cents per pound before the McKinley tariff went into effect now costs them seventy cents per pound. The circular of one of the manufacturera announcing the advance bears date of Oct. 13, 1890, just one week af ter the McKinley law went into eixect. Another part of the piano affected by the tariff is the action, or machinery for transmitting the strokes of the finger from the keys to the strings. ' The old duty on piano actions was 25 per cent. , and under it the business of making actions expanded greatly, there being now twelve establishments engaged in the manufacture of them, one of which makes 30,000 actions a year. But the action makers wanted an absolute monopoly, and so went to the McKinleyites and succeeded in getting the duty put up to 45 per cent. , though they asked for 50 per cent. The smaller piano manufacturers do not make their own actions, and they protested vigorously against the increase of dnty. They said in their petition to McKinley's committeer "The undersigned pianoforte makers of the United States would protest against such an advancement of duty as being unjust, obstructive and fatal to the piano making industry of this country. There appears to be no good reasou for a higher rate of duty on pianoforte actions, since the manufacturera of this article in this country have been highly successful, having made large fortunes within a comparatively short time under the present protection duty. To raise the duty on pianoforte actions woujd simply mean to créate a monopoly for a few action makers at the expense of hundreds of piano makers." The action makers indulged in the usual rot about protecting labor, and declared that they would be compelled to reduce wages were not their demands granted. Just as soon, however, as the McKinley bill was introduced one of these manufacturera at once cut down the wages of his laborers 10 per cent. Having thus given the action makers, the wire makers, ivory key makers and the single maker of f elts full license to prey upon the piano manufacturera, McKinley ruade the pretense of giving these also a "faüand equitable revisión of the tariff" by raising the duty on pians from 25 per cent. to 45 per cent. As any duty at all is a matter of perfect indifference to the piano makers, the hollov? mockery of this piece of McKinleyism is evident.