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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TARIFF MEDDLING HAS HURT BUSINESS MATERIALLY
Says Chas. E. Cameron, President of Lauter Co., Who Claims That Disturbed Business Condi-
tions Throughout the Country Are Due to Lowering of Tariff—A Believer in Protection.
(Special to The Review.)
us in which may possibly have been 50 cents a year,
and then found it necessary to levy an income tax
to supply the deficiency in the revenue caused by
removing perhaps the most easily collected tax in
the list, that on sugar.
"There is nothing the matter, of course, with
an income tax. 1 think it is, perhaps, the most
equitable way to levy a tax if it can be fairly
collected. But the notion seemed to be that the
sugar trust, which may or may not have done some
thing wrong or unwise, was to be penalized in
order to reduce the cost of living, by means of a
lower tariff.
"We got almost to a point apparently where
everything that was big, every enterprise conducted
on a large scale, was open to suspicion. It has
taken us a long time to learn that the real busi-
ness of the world to-day, and from now on will
be, is and must be, 'big business'—production and
distribution by wholesale, so that the cost of out-
turn may be low enough to enable a successful in-
dustrial nation to successfully compete with like
enterprises in neutral markets.
"Even right here in New Jersey we seem to have
some peculiar views on this subject. When I tried
to start a small piano factory in a lot out there,"
pointing through the window, "to enable some of
my more competent employes to co-operate in an-
other piano-making enterprise which would make
a future for them, I ran up against a snag in the
shape of what is called the 'Seven Sisters bill.' It
"Take our own business," he said. "The Germans was my intention, of course, to have the Lauter
make a felt hammer used in pianos, a most excel- Co. own fifty-one per cent, of all the stock in
lent product, cheaper than any one else. We were the new concern so that there should not be any
told we were to get them at a dollar less per set grabbing for control when success had been ob-
because of the reduction in the tariff here. But tained.
Germany is wise in its day and generation, and
"This suited my people and it pleased me, but
when the tariff was put in operation German mak- I found that the law provides that this corpora-
ers of these felt hammers had changed their minds tion, while it might go out in the next lot and
and decided to raise the price for export to almost start a hat factory, or a bakery, or some other and
an extent which amounted to taking over the tariff different variety of industrial activity it would not
we cut off. Whether this may or may not affect be permitted to control another industry in the
our own industry, it is difficult to see the wisdom same line of business. I speak of these things as
of a tariff policy which takes a certain amount having a bearing, in all probability, on the mental
of profits away from an American industry to pre- attitude of many who have had to do with pre-
sent them to the foreign competitor, which is what paring the schedule of the new tariff, which we
was done in this instance—and has resulted in were all told were to make for lower costs of
many others.
living.
"Well," concluded Mr. Cameron, "have you dis-
"There are certain kind of pins used in making
pianos. We had been getting them from Germany. covered any lower cost living? There may come
When the war tended to cut down that supply a lower cost living some day, when Europe reduced
bright young man over in Jersey City started to by war goes back to its factories to compete with
manufacture these pins. He is turning them out us at any cost.
to the satisfaction of his customers, and I under-
"If you have any doubt," he said, "that the tariff
stand has built up an industry there, giving em- has unfavorably affected American industries dur-
ployment to about 200 men. The war created this ing the past year, ask any large manufacturer,
new American industry, mind you, not the tariff, whose wares are duplicated or practically duplicated
and one might ask whether when the war is over in Germany."
our new tariff policy is to be permitted to kill off
this newly created industry for the benefit of high
WINS SUCCESSES MANAGER.
protectionist Germany, which nation will surely en-
(Special to The Review.)
i
joy the advantages of very low-priced labor after
BiNCHAMTON, N. Y., February 15.—R. H. Dim-
the war, even in contrast with what it paid before.
"It is difficult to understand," continued Mr. mock, the well-known piano man, who took charge
Cameron, "how so many people were confused into of the piano department of the Fowler, Dick &
placing confidence in a scheme for a low tariff to Walker Co., this city, succeeding C. G. Smythe,
reduce the high cost of living, one which will take is winning new laurels for himself in that posi-
$50,000,000 tax off sugar, the share of each one of tion. In the few months that he has been in
charge, Mr. Dimmock has succeeded in develop-
ing the business of the department in which is
handled the Mehlin and other lines of pianos and
player-pianos.
Oaiyoive
NEWARK, N. J., February 16.—Among the promi-
nent business men of this city interviewed by a
local newspaper recently re-
garding present trade con-
ditions, was Charles E. Cam-
eron, president of the Lauter
Co., the well-known manu-
facturers, who came o u t
somewhat flat-footed as a
protectionist a n d declared
that meddling with the tariff
was to blame for the dis-
turbed business conditions
C. E. Cameron.
that prevailed in 1914.
After declaring that the falling off in the de-
mand tor pianos in some quarters was due in no
way to direct foreign competition, but rather to the
reduced incomes of the general public, due in a large
measure to conditions brought about by the lower
tariff, the speaker went on to explain that it was from
Germany we received most effective competition
industrially, and he believed that the most serious
competition yet to come would be after the war is
over and labor prices were still lower in that coun-
try. The Germans took up the question of going
into competition in the world's markets in a scien-
tific manner. A protectionist country, like the
United States, they made it their business with
cheap labor to produce more heavily per unit of
production than almost any other country.
piaivo is
d in
this large
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