Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1910 — REDUCING THE TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

REDUCING THE TARIFF.

The Saturday Evening Post Calculates that at the present rate’ of progre-' it will take so hur. : hundred years "to get the tariff down to reasonable limits." This is the result of its appeal t•> ngure- which according to one of the Evening Post's contemp -raries. "upholds I’resident Tart and the new tariff.” It seems that for the nine months ending with April the average duty on all imports, free and dutiable, was 20,9.1 per cent as against 22.73 per cent under the Dingley law. On dutiable imp<>ns the average was 41.73 per cent., whereas under- the Dingley law it was 42.41 per cent. Thus says the Post: "After all the vast commotion which tariff revision involved, we get a reduction of duty amounting to .68 of 1 per cent, as to dutiable imports, or to almost 2 per cent, as to all imports. tree and dutiable combined.” Here is the Post’s conclusion: "Since 1870 the Republican party has vouchsafed us a reduction of 2.22 per cent, in the duty bn manufactures—or. to be exact, on all dutiable imports. This is at the rate of 1 per cent, every eighteen years. At that rate it will lake only four hundred years to get the tariff down to reasonable limits. No wonder th? President regards the figures complacently’ But we do not think any insurgent will be disrftaved bv them."

Rut gpmetfeing must be said, not only of the reduction, but ot its consequences. Between 1870 and 1905 we are told that the number ot iron and steel mills tell from 808 to 606. though the value of the output rose from 5200.000.000 to $900,000.000. The number of woolen mills fell from 3.208 to 1.213. though the value of the product ri >se from 5200.000.000 to $400.000.000. In the cotton industry there has been a .growth both in number of mils and in the product. the farmer rising from 956 to 1.017. and the latter from SI 70.000.000 to 5440.000.000. “This." says the Post, “barelv suggests the growth of our manufactures and the extent to which they have been consolidate! or trustified.’ ’’ The growth is not great, considering the long period of time covered, no greater than \V< *u!d have been experience funder a much loyver tariff, or even tinder no tariff at all. But the tendency toward consolidation has been marked. Such are some of the figures which “uphold President Taft and the new tariff.” Others, might be. and ot course, will be given. It can be shown that the workingman get little or none of the bonus, that the labor cost of production is less than the protection granted, and that, therefore. the present duties, besides covering whatever difference there may be between the cost of production here and abroad, more than cover the total cost of manufacture. But the immediately interesting fact is that it will take congress, at the present rate, four hundred years to effect any reduction of duties at all worth while. The tariff has been revised downward “by its friends" at the rate of 1 per cent, in eighteen years. There is nothing in such a policy as this to excite the apprehensions of those

who think have a vested right to live off taxes levied on the people. But neither is there anything in it to make the people believe that they are to have any relief from this burden in the near future. —Indianapolis News. .