Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1890 — The Conference-McKinley Tax-Bill. [ARTICLE]

The Conference-McKinley Tax-Bill.

When the senate took up the conference report on the tariff bill Mr. Carlisle addressed the senate. He would not, he said, attempt to discuss the economic the°ry of the bill. It was now about to pass entirely from the hands of; the senate and beyond its control, and a discussion of the question could not be undertakenwithout neglecting the last opportunity to state, as accurately as possible, what the main provisions of the measure were and what would be its probable effect on taxation. It was not his purpose to attempt to state the effect of the measure on the publio revenue beoause it would be impossible to do so with any degree of accuracy. But he would state approximately wh it its effect on taxation would be. No member of the finance committee had ventured during the tariff debate to express an opinion as to what the effect of.the bill would be on the revenues of the government except the senator from lowa (Mr. Allison) who, in the course of a speech on the subject of the expenditures of the government, had revived the subject to some extent. — But tha; was before the conference report was made.

In the statement made by the finance committee when the bill was reported, the reduction of revenue had been given as $71,000,000 under the house bill and SGO,000,000 under the senate bill. Of the $60,000,000 redaction (from articles plaoedon the free list) nearly $56,000,000 came from sugar and molasses, leaving enly between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 as the redaction occasioned by the removal of other articles from the dutiable list. He asserted that the bill, as it now stood (excepting sugar and molasses), removed from the free list and placed on the dutiable list more than it took from the dutiable list and placed on the free iist. He also asserted that the bill would reduce the revenues and increase the taxation; that while it would not increase the revenues, it would increase the taxation of the people very many times the amount by increasing the prices of the articles of similar domestic production. If it were true that the revenue derived under the conference bill, on the basis of the importations of 1889, would be over $225,000,000, then the average rate of duty on dutiable articles would be be 57 7-10 per cent., withont taking into apqount the ninth section of the administrative bill, whiob would add from 4to 5 per cent. Unless all his calculations were at fault, the average rate of duty under this conference bill and the administrative bill on dutiable articles, would be 60 per cent, instead of 45J per cent, under existing laws. Mr. Carlisle went on to give figures as to the increased taxation under the conference bill, stating it to be in the iron schedule, $ 10,000,000; in the woolen schedules, $14,000,000; in the cotton schedule. $2,000,000; in the flax and linen schedule, $5,000,000; on tin-plates, $8,735,000, and on tin in pigs or bars, $1,357,000. In order to compensate for that enormous increase of taxation, a tax of 2 cents a ’ pound 'amounting to $5,800,000), was to be taken off tobacco. The removal of that tax would relieve no man, and be beneficial to nobody eioept the manufacturers and retail era of tobacco, who wo’d divide that 2 ents a pound between them. • S» producer es tobeer# ami M omnw

of tobaooo would be benefltted to the extent of one mill Coming to the question of the bounty on sugar—ls cents per pound on sugar polarizing up to 90 per cent, and 2 cents on sugar polarizing over 90 per cent., he said that the bounty wonld amount, on the basis of the present prodnotion, to between $7,000,000 end $8,000,000 a year.— This was the first time, he said, in the history of theoountrythetit was proposed to pay out of the public rreesury a bounty to aid domestic producers. But no part of the bounty, he esserted, would be paid to the grower of the beet or sorghum or cane; every dollsr of it wonld go to the sugar manufacturer. It might be said, however, that the producer would rooeive a higher prioe for his product. That, he declared, could not be, for in the first plaoe, the farmer oould not oontrol the prioes of his prodnots, and in the seoona plaoe the manufacturer of beet sugar would be compelled to sell his sugar in the open market in competition with the sugar made from cane and soighnm, and oould not afford to pay to the farmer one oent more for his beets than their value as compared with the valne of other substances from whioh sugar is made. Nor would the consumer, he said, receive any benefit from the bounty. He would not get his auger 1 cent cheaper than he would get it if there was no bounty paid, fer the bountypaid sugar would sell in the markets at the same prioe precisely as the duty-paid refined sugar ooming from other countries. This was a new application of the principle of protection in tniß country and was copied from the paternal governments of Europe. It did not apply equally to all the people of the United States because there was a large area of oountry in whioh cane, sotghum and beet oould not be produoed. The advantage of the bounty would be confined to those who make sugar grown from the cane in Louisiana, the sorghnm grown in Kansas and the beet grown in the Northwest. There was, therefore, no possible ground on which the constitutionality of that provision oould be maintained, except on the ground that congress had the right to impose taxes to raise revenue for the purpose of promoting the general welfare and that the proposed bounty was such a proposition. It required no constitutional prohibition to invalidate suoh a law, beoanse it was a violation of the terms of every social compact in a free country. The courts had invariably held that no state legislature could authorize a county or municipality to impose taxes for the purpose of enoouraging manuf actures.’or any other industrial pursuits. If the states could not do it, with unlimited power of taxing, how, Mr. Carlisle asked, oould the general government do it? On this point Mr. Carlisle quoted at length from writers on jurisprudence and from decisions of courts in several states to the effect that taxation for private purposes was uot taxation, but plunder.

Having disposed of the legal points involved, he said that the bill having put sugar on the free listfand provided for a bounty to home producers, permitted the president to impose the duty on sugar unless the governments of sugar-produc-ing countries on this hemisphere«“should do something that would be satisfactory to his excellency,” It was a proposition to oonfide to the judgment or caprioe of the president alone tne determination not merely of oertain facts defined in the law, but of the results and effeots of those facts and circumstances. The amendment offered by the senator from Maine (Mr. Hale) had been substantially correct; but the amendment reported from the finance committee and embodied in the bill was not reciprocity; it was retaliation, pure and simple. The proposition was one to retaliate on the people of the United States by imposing a duty of 10 cents a pound on tea, 5 cents a pound on coffee and from 35 to 38 per oent. on sugar, unless China Japan, Brazil abet Spain sho’d do certain things, over whioh the consumers in the United States had no control. He did not think that the reciprocity section would be of substantial benefit to either the manufacturer or the farmer.— He regarded the proposition as a mere political devioe, to appease, as far as possible, an indignant public sentiment and to check for the time being, a rising cloud of opposition to this extreme policy of protection.