CURIOSITIES OF PROTECTION

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 214, 3 April 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURIOSITIES OF PROTECTION

Mr Chamberlain's story of the annual subsidy once paid to him by the " pro tected " screw manufacturers in the United States not to disturb their monopoly of sale has created no little excitement among American Protectionists and equal amusement among theii opponents. A Boston Protectionist newspaper began by affirming positively that there never had been a duty of 100 per cent, on screws. This statement is termed " the centre of the fabrication " and " the trunk lie," around which all the other lies centred. The New York Evening Post took up the challenge, and ascertained at the Custom House what the ad valorem duties on screws had been. Before July, 1883, they ranged from 19 per cent, on the smallest size to 180 per cent on the largest size, and the average duty on a general assortment such as a hardware dealer would keep iv stock was 110 per cent. The amount of the subsidy Mr Chamberlain received is stated on good authority to have been £5000 a year, and while that was being paid the American Screw Company is declared to have paid a dividend of IU per cent, pei month. Wo commend these figures to the attention of our own Pair Traders. — Pall Mall Gazette.