doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Need advise

I am in need of help in finding the US Tariff passed in the late 1880,s that placed a tariff on English guns and foriegn barrels. I know the result was to give US makers a better chance of selling nice guns. Thanks

McKinley was the chap responsible if memory serves.

The McKinley Tariff of 1890 was the biggie
http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/tariff.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/tariff?cat=biz-fin
(scroll down to 1890-1930)
And has school started already in MT?

Interesting, I would never have thought of guns as needing or benefitting from protectionism and a non-free trade market.

Brent

Don't hesitate to give your Congressional Rep. a call if you want a copy. That's one of the things they are there for...

The tariff never specified English goods.

The McKinley Tariff was originally passed to protect the American farmer. If you read his original speech given in Congress that is obvious. It never achieved this goal. It did set off a series of "tariff wars" that raged in Congress for almost 40 years. These varied in their impact on the trans-Atlantic gun trade. Completed guns suffered the most.

It is interesting to note that the .410 was developed in England, but did not appear here until 1915. Perhaps a direct result of Woodrow Wilson's election and his efforts to take the tariff's apart.

On the flip side, because European firearms where artifically more expensive, many small firearms companies were created here. Not the least of which are names like Lefever, Fox, Parker, LC Smith, etc. Many of whom were able to import barrels and other parts of European manufacture because the tariff treated them more kindly than an assembled firearm. During this period we have examples of European firms licensing American patents and producting the guns for their market, but few examples of the reverse.

Pete

Thanks , You guys know your history better than this old PE teacher. I printed a good deal of it.

The Tariff put a lot of export reliant English firms on the downward spiral. Many never fully recovered.

Interesting point. I have no doubt you are correct. I have paid more attention to American-Belgian trade relationship during this period. For my education, could you name one or two firms so impacted? I would imagine there was a ripple through out the production chain in England eventually impacting the steel industry in some degree.

Pete