Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1891 — A Compensating Duty. [ARTICLE]

A Compensating Duty.

Have you ever heard of a “compensating duty?” A compensating duty is this: Woolen goods, for example, bear two duties, so much per cent, ad valorem and so much per pound additional. The reason given for this is that the ad valorem duty is protection against foreign goods of the same kind, and that the duty by the pound is to make good to the manufacturer the duty he had paid on raw wcol. It is “compensation” to him for that outlay; the manufacturer himself regards it as such, and always insists on having the “compensating duty” maintained. . Now, if the foreigner pay 3 the fax, why do the protectionists vote a “compensating duty” to the manufacturer? Ought they not in justice to vote it back to the foreigner if it is to “compensate” anybody at all? It is clear that the McKinleyites themselves do not believe in their time worn assertion, “the foreigner pays the tax.”