Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1892 — An Example of Tariff Taxes. [ARTICLE]

An Example of Tariff Taxes.

As an example is always better than an argument, I will present to the reader an actual transaction under the McKinley bill, which has been furnished me through the kindness of a friend in New York. He says, under date of Feb. 17; “I received a shipment this week from Manchester containing a number of cases of dress goods, mostly all wool, and some woolen and worsted cloths, also some cotton warp dress goods. Entered value, $2,631; packing is accountable for sl9 of this, the value of the cloth being $2,612. I paid $2,621.05 duty. Of course the consumers, the public at large, will eventually pay this." Let us study this concrete example for a moment. We see that cloth and dress goods of the value of $2,612 cost the. importer $5,233.06, which sum he mutft get back from the consumers of the goods, with his profits upon the transaction. 2. The goods imported are among the necessaries of our country and climate, and not the mere luxuries of those who are rich and extravagant. 3. The farmer or the laborer buys these goods for his wife and children, and believes, when he puts down on the store counter a dollar of his that he is getting a dollar’s worth of goods, when, in fact, he Is paying more than half of the money for the tax and the profits of the tax of several middlemen that have been secretly wrapped up in the goods. * 4. These goods are also largely made In this country. They would not be Imported unless they could be sold here for cost and tax, and a iair profit on both. Except for the tax, we could buy them for the cost and a fair profit on it. The tariff tax which the Government mixes with them before it allows them to pass into the clothing of the people thus more than doubles their cost, and at the same time Increases by a like amount the price which similar homemade goods can be sold to the people. This last is the purpose for which it is levied. 5. The labor cost of producing these goods in this country is not more than 20 per cent, greater than the labor cost in Manchester, and but for a tariff on wool that actually depresses the value of our native wool but increases the cost of the foreign wools needed for mingling with our native grades to make these goods, the cost of material would be the same in both countries. 5. Let the farmer and - laborer now sit down and figure to his satisfaction if he can why a law of Congress should be made to compel him to give two bushels of wheat or two days of his labor for the same quantity of necessary goods that he could but for such a loss procure with less than one bushel of his wheat, or less than one day of his labor.—Congressman W. L. Wilson, in St. Louis Republic.