Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1883 — THE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF.

spe«d» of Hon. J. Randolph Tucker, of Virginia, In the House' of Representatives, Jan. 26, 1683. Mr. Chatkman; The bill which is reported by the committee contains 2,440 lines. There is scarcely an' article known to the consumption of the American people that is not included within its schedules for taxation, either by name or within their extraordinary classifications We are taxed on every class of subjects, and if the House will look at the bill they will find the last item is some article whose name begins with “Z.” So, then, we are taxed from “A” to “izzard” The truth is that the whole purpose of our tariff system seems to have been perverted from its original object, which was to select those subjects which would produce revenues for the support of the Government, until by the law of the last session experts have been employed for the purpose of finding not how we can raise revenue but how We can prevent revenue, in the interest of bounty to monopolies Why, Mr. Chairman, my friends and colleagues on the Committee on Ways and Means who hold views diverse from my own will admit that in the counsels of our committee it was conceded by a witness before us-that certain duties were absolutely prohibitory and were intended to be so. And as to one of the classifications in the wool schedule, upon which they do not know the present rate of duty charged because of expert classification, it was also conceded that ft was not even an infant industry, but an industry to'be brought into being by this paternal Government (not an infant in esse , but only in posse) in order that the little bantling after it was started into life might be protected bv the public bounty as all other Infant industries are by this so-called protective policy. Mr. Chairman, let us look at the history of the efforts for the revision of this tariff. We find that the tariff which had existed up to 1861-62 was revised by what is known as the Morrill tariff at rates very largely below what now exist, that continued during the war and until 1872-’7B, when there was a revision by which the duties were reduced 10 per cent And just before the advent of the Democratic party to power In this House, in the last hours of the Forty-third Congress, the tariff was revised again, and the 10 per cent which had been taken off was again imposed and continues to this day. And this tariff is higher in most respects than that of 1842, ana on the average on dutiable articles is nearly as high os any in our history. Ever since that time we have been trying to get this tariff revised. My honorable friend from Illinois (Mr. Morrison), who was Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the Forty-fourth Congress, reported abill on which we might have secured action had it not been for the great Presidential issue of the winter of 1876-’77. The late Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, Hon. Fernando Wood, of New York, in the Forty-fifth Congress reported a bill, and the only consideration it received from our friends on the other side of the House when it came into the committee of the whole was a motion made to strike out the enacting clause, which was done. Every effort, Mr. Chairman, hitherto made has been foiled; and the effort has been to keep the people of this country under the same burden of taxation that now exists without any change or revision. No change has been made except in the sporadic case of the motion of my friend from Kentucky (Mr. McKenzie) to suspend the rules and put quinine on the free-list

At the last session of Congress, when a proposition was made to consider the revision of the tariff, a counter proposition for the creation of a Tariff Commission was offered for the purpose of making that revision. A commission for a revision had been proposed in a previous Congress, but it was postponed. As was wittily said by some one, the whole Tariff Commission proposition was simply an affidavit for a continuancer We were told at the last session of Congress that Congress was incapable of acting upon the question, that it was incompetent for the task of a systematic and thorough revision of the tariff, and that we must have a board of experts upon a commission to do that work for Congress On our side of the House, in opposition to that commission, we insisted that when the report of the commission came into Congress, with its tariff Sosition, we would necessarily be comdto go to work to remedy the defects that might exist in it; in fact, to revise the revision: and the Committee on Ways and Means of the House and the Finance Committee at the other end of the Capitol have been for nearly two months revising and changing the work of the commission of exEerta It is not surprising that this should e the case. That commission for revision, I will not say all of them, because it is not true, but a number of the gentlemen who were on that commission, were persons who were interested in the perpetuation of this system by which the consumers of the country are made to contribute to the support of the monopoliea It was a tribunal so constituted that the advocates at its bar were the judges who sat on its bench; and, after their advocacy of the system which they proposed in tneir own interests, they sat on the bench and decided accordingly. This was not true of all; there were exceptions; but it was notoriously true of some of them The bill of that commission came into our Committee on Ways and Means. I am not revealing any of the secrets of that committee when I say that two of the members of that commission appeared before it, and one them very signally went back on the report which he had signed as a member of the commission, and advocated the views which had been his own personal views on the commission but in which he was overruled by the other members. Being thus overruled he came" into the committee, and the committee almost entirely subscribed to his views and increased the duties on woolen goods, being the particular articles to which that member of the commission addressed himself. The committee in the way of revision of the bill of the commission has increased the duties, I believe, certainly with very few exceptions, as, for example, on sugars and tin-plates. Now, Mr. Chairman, here is the biU of the Tariff Commission and here is the bill as we propose it, or rather as the committee propose; and my honorable friend, the Chairman of the committee, the chancellor of the exchequer, comes in with his budget under his arm, and when asked, as he was on yesterday, to throw some light on this subject and tell the House and country what would be the effect of the revenue bill now" proposed on the quantum of revenue, he said he was unable to do anything more than to make a very shrewd guess at it In the revision and formation of a tariff bill three parties are interested: the Government for its revenue, the manufacturer for his bounty, and the consumer for his burden. Before I go into an analysis of the bill in respect to these important interests, permit me to make this remark: those with whom I co-operate upon that committee nnd with whom I stand associated in this House on the tariff question have not proposed any radical reforms in this tariff system. -We recognize the fact that under this protect-ive-tariff policy industries have grown up, have been brought into being, nave been nursed by the Government, and capital has been invested in them to such an extent that it would not only be wrong but unstatesmaplike for any one in this country to attempt to break up the whole manufacturing interests of the country by a leap from the high protective system which prevails down to what I would regard as a rev-enue-tariff system. All that we proposed or attempted to do, and all that we will attempt to do in the course of the investigation of this bill is to diminish the enormous profits of the manufacturing industries which are derived from levying a tribute upon the consuming interests of the country.

With this preliminary statement I proceed to show what I call the special attention of the House to, that the burden which the consumer bears in reference to the tariff system is double, in its character. He bears a burden resulting: from the tax levied by the Government upon an article of import that he consumes, which tax goes into the Treasury. That is a burden which he bears in the support of his Government; and, heavy as it may be for all the legitimate purposes of the Government, he cheerfully Dears it But there is another burden that he bears, and that is the burden which results from a system of prohibitory duties under your tion, prevents all but indirectly enhances the price of the home article he u forced to consume instead of the foreign article—not to the full extent of the duly in all cases, but a large percentage of that duty he does pay in the enhanced price of the domestic article he consumes, and which thus goes, not into the treasury at

m all, but into the pockets of the manufacturer, as a bounty contributed by the consumer. It is obvious, therefore, that, when the country lifts its hands and cries for a relief from the burden, it is idle and delusive for the gentlemen on the other side to say; “Why, do not yon see we have decreased the burden? The*revenues under this tariff will be $20,000,000 less than they are under the existing tariff.” True, if that be the fact, the burden which the citizen bears in contributing to the support of the Government is lessened: but if, along with the lessening of the duty which would go into the treasury you increased the duties which are for the benefit of the manufacturer, and by prohibiting importation increase the bounty paid by the consumer, do you not see that, while yon credit the Government with a diminution of burden on the score of revenue to it, you must charge the Government and this bill with the increase of burden Which comes from the amount the consumer is made to pay to the monopolies of the manufacturers? Take this instance, and I call the attention of my honorable friends from the South to it, take the instance of cotton-ties. The present duty on cotton-ties nnder the “n. o. p.” provision, the “not otherwise provided” provision, is 35 per cent ad valorem. Now, what is tho duty proposed by this bill? It will amount, as 1 see by the statement of some gentleman who has made a calculation, to 82 per cent ad valorem. Now, while under the present rate of duty of 35 cent ad valorem there is a revenue collected for the Government from cottofities, under the proposed rate of duty of 82 percent ad valorem there will be no revenue at all derived from that source. And the effect of it will be that gentlemen will say, “Why, yon see we have relieved the people of the country, particularly our Southern brethren, from all taxation on account of cotton ties.” That is bo say, by the orook of the treasury we will take nothing, but by the crook of protection the burden on the cotton-tie consumer is doubled in the interest of the monopolist manufacturer, although the Government does not get a cent of revenue from it

Now, Mr. Chairman, there is a subject which has been one of very great interest in this discussion—the subject of labor. I have gone into that so fully on a former occasion that I do uot desire to consume time upon it just now, except by making one or two statements. 1 wish to show that the idea that a protective tariff can have any effect in increasing the wages of labor in a country is absolutely unfounded If you will ask a man why he wants a protective tariff he will tell you, because labor is so much higher in this country than abroad that he cannot pay the wages demanded and manufacture the article at a profit Suppose there were no tariff, would the protective-tariff man demand a tariff? Yes. Why? Because under free trade, as labor here would be so much higher than it is abroad, capitalists in certain branches of industry could not afford to carry them on, could not go into these manufactures without a protection which would enable them to pay the wages demanded Thus it will he seen that so far from the tariff being the cause of the high wages, it is the- fact of high wages that makes occasion and creates the need for a tariff. Men want protection because, as they say, the laborer demands higher wages here than he does in England, and they cannot afford to carry on manufactures unless they get enough protection to give such price to the products as will leave a profit after paying the wages demanded by labor. Yet the protectionist turns the argument right around, and holds that the tariff is the cause of high .wages, when in fact the high wages in this country is the-cause of manufacturers wanting and demanding a tariff for protection.

But, Mr. Chairman, there is no man on the committee —and I speak not only for gentlemen on the other side but for myself and, I think for the distinguished friends who act with me on this question—there is no man on the committee who is not willing in the present condition of things to accord such a duty upon all these manufactured articles as will enable the manufacturing interests'"to pay the full measure qf wages that the American laborer has a right to demand. But what we desire is that, after we have made the tariff high enough to enable you to protect the laboring man in his wages, you shall not under the color of getting a high tariff to protect the laboring man get a tariff which will enormously increase the profits of manufacturing capital But I want to call the attention of the committee to another point in this connection. A proper question for the laborer to ask is not only “How much wages will I get?” but “How much will I be able to get w ith my wages?” It is not how much wages in money he gets into his hands, but how much of the comforts of life will he be able to buy with his wages? When you tax the blanket, when you tax the food, when you tax the clothing and the very homes of the Soor laboring man 50' 00 and 70 per cent., it i a mere delusion to him to increase his wages and then to a like extent increase the price of the things he has to buy with his

wages. There is another matter to which I desire to call especial attention, and that is a point made by a distinguished gentleman on the Republican side of this House many years ago. I claim for it no originality, and give him full credit I refer to my friend the present Director of the Mint, the Hon. Mr. Burchard, of Illinois The idea is this: The factors that enter into the cost of every manufactured article are the cost of the raw material and the cost of the labor. Now, if the raw material costs the domestic manufacturer no more than it does the foreigner (sometimes it is less, as in the case of cotton) and the cost of labor in this country is 50 -per cent higher than it is in the cotton factories of England (which it is not, for the reports of the Secretary of State show that, looking to the efficiency of our labor and the length of time employed, the English laborer is as well paid in the cotton factories of Manchester as in the cotton factories of America; I refer to the reports of Mr. Secretary. Blaine and Mr. Secretary Evarts, in such case the manufacturer demands such duty on the perfected article as will compensate for the increased price of raw material and of labor. Now, when raw material is not enhanced to the domestic manufacturer over what the foreign manufacturer has to pay, then the only thing you want a dqty for is to protect the labor. I may say the labor in cotton manufactures, in round numbers (I am not precisely accurate), is about 20 per cent and the raw material 80 per cent It is obvious, then, to any man who is an - arithmetician that if you want to give 50 per cent protection to the labor involved in the manufacture of that particular cotton product worth SIOO a duty of 10 per cent on the whole product, which amounts to $lO, will yield 50 per cent on the S2O of labor in the product; therefore where the cost of the raw material here and abroad is the same, and the only thing to be protected is the labor, you may distribute a small duty over the whole product “which will accumulate on the element of labor engaged in it to an extent ample for its protection And in the case of cotton a duty of 10 percent on the cotton manufactured would be equivalont to a duty o 4 50 per cent protection to the labor engaged in making it The same doctrine applies in reference to all manufactured articles. Very often our friends say that, while the cost of labor here and in England differs by 50 per cent, you must have on this article 50 per cent duty to protect the laborer. But the view I have taken shows this is not necessary. 'You must look in each case at what is the cost of the raw material there and here, and so lay your duty on the whole, raw material and labor combined, as will be equivalent to the protection of the labor engaged in the manufacture of the particular article. Now, Mr. Chairman, let us see how much the manufacturer is interested in this matter. I find by the returns of the census that on all of the manufactures of this country the profits amount to over 35 percent, under the existing tariff—the profits on woolens to 34 per cent.; on chemicals, 33 per cent.; on cottons, 24 per cent On iron and steel the final report has not been made, as there have been errors in the previous one; but the new report will show an increased profit over the present one But the profits on iron and steel bj the present report amount to 21 per cent; on window-glass they amount to 20 per cent Such being the beneficial results to the manufacturer, what is it to the consumer whether you levy the duty on him and put it into the treasury or levy the same duty and put it into the manufacturer’s pocket? I will tell you what is the difference to the consumer. That which he puts into the treasury goes to the support of the Government and is a benefit to him. What goes into the pocket of the monopolists is a tribute winch he pays out of his own labor to fill the already full and overflowing coffers of the manufacturing industries of the country. They have now got so mean that they adulterate poison,