Laredo Weekly Times

ANOTHER TARIFF STEAL.

A recent announcement made in Lynn, Mass., one of the great shoe manufacturing centers of the United States, that an increase in the price of shoes to both wholesalers and retailers will be made in March to the extent of from five to seven per cent is a circumstance which the advocates of the removal of the duty from hides have an excellent opportunity to explain.

Of course, the customer must be the ultimate loser in this transaction, for the wholesaler and the retailer are sure to add the increased prices paid by them to their selling prices, so one may well wonder where the benefit to the consumer is coming from by the recent abolition of the duty on hides. Putting hides on the free list has injured the cattle raisers, but since the shoe manufacturers are going to increase, rather than reduce their prices on shoes, they appear to be the sole beneficiaries of the change.

This is in accordance with the policy of denying a protection to raw materials from which protected articles are manufactured, and it illustrates the injustice of such a plan. While the man who raises the hide is denied protection, thus compelling him to sell his product to the shoe manufacturer at a reduced price, the latter increases the price of his shoes and compels the consumers to pay more for them, so that after all, the scheme is wholly in the interests of the shoe manufacturer, who is the only one to profit by it. If the duty is taken off hides, then the duty on shoes should be correspondingly affected, otherwise, it will result in nothing except graft in favor of the protected few against the interests of the helpless thousands.