People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — ANOTHER VIEW. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER VIEW.

Tne Tariff Bill as Regarded by Republican Loaders. The Minority Report on the Wilson Measure Presented to Congreit-Thclr CrittcHm of tli© Proposed Changes. CONDEMNED BY REED. Washington, Dec, 23. —The report of the minority members of the ways and means committee on the tariff bill was Bubmitted to the house Thursday. The first part of the report, discussing the bill generally, was prepared by exSpcaker Reed, The other members of the minority—Messrs. Burrows. Payne, Dalzell, Hopkins and Gear —prepared the portion of the report dealing with special features. The report says: The most surprising thing about this bill is the fact that this proposition lo raise revenue will lower the revenue of this country $74,000,000 below the revenue of 1893, which was only $2.031),000 above our expenses. This fact and the other fact that by this bill the larger part of the burden of taxation is transferred from foreigners and borne by our otVn citizens should always bo kept in mind during the discussion. Had the committee, in making what the chairman on the floor of the house has called a “political bill” followed the plain uncompromising declaration of the party which they represent, and abolished protection, giving us a tariff lor revenue only, our task in commenting upon the result of the committee s efforts would have been much more simple. The bill would then have been a straightforward, manly attempt to carry out pledges and would havq placed in i.jsue two groat principles and have led to a clear and comprehensible discussion. So far, however, have the committee departed from the demands of their national convention that we should have teen much tempted to borrow a phrase from their ov. n platform and i designate the bill as a “cowardly makeshift,” were it not that the results have b.een already too serious for mere epithets. Such a phrase, even thus sanctioned, would be out of place in a discussion which involves so much of im portance to all classes of citizens It still, however, remains a fact that tho bilbpresented j can in no way be justified by people who claim I to have obtained possession of all branches of ! tho government upon a distinct promise, which I they now as distinctly repudiate. If it should be said that the pledges, solemn- ' ly made on a yea and nay Vole, after full discus- | sion, wef<s not intended for action, then the I breaking of the pledges has the additional dis- j advantage of premeditation. If subsequent i events have convinced the committee that the democratic platform is utterly wrong and inde- ; sensible as histor# will know it to be, then it is a great misfortune to this country that tho committee did not have the courage to openly abandon the false doctrine and leave the country undisturbed, so that it might convalesce from the shock of its great mistake. But the committee, instead of proceeding in its great work of abolishing protection and preserving tho peoplo from the load of taxation which they have always averred was the result of protection, has presented a bill which is only another tariff tinkering bill, the like of which has disturbed the conditions of business so many times the last thirty years, it is a great misfortune that such is the case, for had the bill been for revenue only, in the only sense possible for that term, the people of this country might have seen at one glance whether they desired the one poiicv or the other, and the question might havo been settled once for all, and the country might have attained to that repose, stability and certainty which our business prosperity so much needs.

Why Change a Good Law? As to the new plan, the very first question one is disposed to ask is: Why disturb existing business relations if there is to be no change in principle? If wo are still to have protection, why take this time to cause a readjustment when the business conditions are of such a character that the greatest, amount of disaster will be tho result? This other and fresher plan has all the faults which the framers of this bill charged upon tho old. and very few ot its virtues. It is open to ail the derisive and harsh epithets with which the present system used to he overwhelmed. It taxes the people with tariff taxes. It creates, or rather proposes to maintain, what they used to call privileged classes, and is defended by its authors by arguments and expressions strangely like those which they used so hotly to denounce. “Free Raw Material.” The new plan involves a now method of encouraging manufacturers by giving them what is called “free raw material,” so that what goes into the mill pays no taxes and what goes into consumption pays all the taxes. The manufacturers pay no taxes on what they buy and the people the equivalent of taxes on nil they purchase. It unfortunately happens, also, that “free raw material” is an elastic term, and what is one man’s free raw material is another man’s finished product The manufacturer in Massachusetts is told that he is to be encouraged bv having free lumber to build nis factory and to pack his goods, but inasmuch as that very lumber thus made free is tho Maine manufacturer’s finished product no wonder the democrats of Bangor, the mills on tho Penobscot being unable to move a saw, denounce “class legislation” with, a new appreciation of what class legislation really means. And with the dwellers on the Penobscot sympathize the lumbermen in Wisconsin and Michigan, tho Pacific slope, Alabama, Georgia and Florida No doubt theminers in Michigan struggling tnis very moment with starvation realize that the most odious class legislation there can possibly be is the legislation which protects labor iu the mill and leaves it in the mines to the charity of tie great cities. Needs of American Wool.

If the woolens of America need, as thi3 very bill assumes, 30 and -10 per cent, to enable them to have a fair chance in our own markets, where is the unlimited foreign trade which awaits them in countries where they are stripped of the 30 and 40 per cent, protection and obliged to pay freight and all other charges and light business connections existing tor scores of years? All the objections so often urged by the dominant party against the existing system, we repeat, be agaiast this bill. The difference is only one of degree: if the present system oe “robbery.” as these men have iterated and reiterated, the proposed system is precisely the same. t It is true the consumer will no longer pay tribute to the western farmea for the wool of the sheep, but the New England and other manufacturers are still authorized to lay tribute upon the citizens of the United States who must pay, so these men have always paid 30, *0 and 45 per cent, to the manufacturer on every yard of woolens and wpnsteds. while the country will only receive, by way of revenue, a lessened sum, unless increased importations signalize the diecay of American production, it is true that the coal miuers of \V< st Virginia and the ore producers of Michigan will be stripped of their so-called robber gains entirely, and the railroads must lose the transportation of millions of tons of freight; but the manufacturers are thereby stimulated; and aided so.that they can, as the eommitleeasseverate, still continue their profitable business here and reach across ahe ocean for the business of other countries and foreign tradewithout limit. Labor and the- Tariff. The moral and social well-being of a nation dees not depend so much; upon its absolute wealth as upon the yearly distribution of this yen) ly gain. Whatever cats be said of the people ftf the United States, nothing can be more truly said than that the distribution off the proceeds of united labor and capital lias been among them more even and fair than anywhere eif e on earth. There have beengreat accumulations of capital necessary for the world’s daveiopment all over the universe, but in the United States all this has been accompanied t>y the nearest approach to general distribution that the world has ever seen. This has not beta all owing to the tariff, but the tariff has been tbe j foundation of it Labor organizations have played a great and useful part in this iffisir.button. Men in general who employ labur are no more naturally disposed to pay high wages under tariff than those who exploit the laboring man under free trade, but the tariff, liny giving steady employment under the influence or a Bure market, by establishing the organization of industry under the factory system, has given to organized labor the material to won; upon, the fund of which it hits dernandeddistribution. Protection has established the clusters of great manufacturing and working centers which have given railroads the possibili'y of existence which no scattered population could ever have created. The railroads which these great manufacturing towns and their need of transportation of freight have built are sources of enjoyable wealth whioh are not confined to the protected imi us tries, but are spread through all *he business of the United States &>nd in Europe to tie comfort and happiness of all the people. "Without being guilty of that attempt to press the question into a nutshell, which is the bane of economic discussion, it may he briefly said that every product which pot's to market most meet every other like product on equal terms. If in tho United States there are higher wuges and a higher cost of capital there must be such barriers against goods from abroad ns will equalize these hlgl or costs, or the products of the Uutieii states canuot be uold cxAptava

loss, tnles at a loss cannot iocs continue. It mat be nattering to our national vanity to b« toln ihat our workmen, being Americans, are so touch abler than other/ beyond sea*; that they can there tor do much more work that the higher wages will continue as a mark ot their superiority But much a* we would like to believe this Inert are no maaufacturing figures which justify the assertion. A Demand tor Lover Prices. There Is also a constant jemand for lower prices, which demand has to be listened to In • country always striving toward a higher plane of civilization. We have, therefore, before us always three problems—wages to be maintained. hours of labor to be lessened, and prices to be lowered. Not one, but all. It Is true that Invention al once keeps pace with and regulates the demand for higher wages and lower prices and fewer hours, which are the conditions of our higher plane of civilzation. but it cannot do more. It cannot meet in addition the lower prices of a lower level of civilization. Our Inventions are too quickly absorbed by foreign countries to permit this. Hence the result of a refusal to protect our labor at its present rates must result in lower wages. Some men soothe themselves with the thought that perhaps some return will come from the cheapness of things made abroad, without thinking that all that is made abroad by this plan is but labor unemployed and unpaid here at home. But while this easy solution of the problem is simple enough on paper, it will prove very uncomfortable in practice. Men who have worked at one rate of wages cannot bo easily taught In real life that it is just as well to work at a lower rate. Another Question of Wage*. There Is also another view of the question of wages which is not to be overlooked. Lessened wages mean lessened consumption. If wages were diminished one-balf, one-half our market for products would begone. Butwbile thisbillin Us principle, If it has any, is not unproteetive, It will be absolutely so in practice not only in Its direct reductions, but also in its indirect reductions sure to come from the change from specific duties to ad valorem, which is a marked feature of the bill. An ad valorem duty, as the name Implies, is one which varies according to thd price If prices CQu'.d be exactly determined nothing Would seem to be fairer than the ad valorem duty. But, unfortunately, prices are very much matters of opinion, on whitlb honest men may differ much and rogues much more. Inasmuch as the duty depends on the price, a cheat on the price is a cheat on the duty. If a piece of goods is worth 46 a yard and the duty is 25 per cent, the correct duty is $1 60. If the price be invoiced at $5 a yard and the fraud not detected the duty collected becomes $1 25, arid the ad valorem, which seems to be 25 per cent, becomes about 20 per cent-and not only is the government cheated out of its quarter of a dollar, but the manufacturer is cheated out of one-fifth of the protection his government hal promised hitsk Th:'s is not theory. It is within the experience of every merchant that goods which cannot be purchased at all in Europe can be purchased, duty paid In New York at lc wer prices than like goods can be purchased by the honest merchant who values them at itheir true market value and pays the duty demanded by the government, and yet these ad valorem duties thus objectionable have been Increased in number everywhere, being substituted in nearly all the schedules for specific duties. How the hill will act as a revenue raiser, and how it can act as an injury to the government and the producer both together, is well exemplified In the changes made in the pottery schedulo. Only an amount equal to two-fifths of the amount of the imports are made here, valued at #3,810,000. Nine millions and a half are imI ported. Under existing law the revenue obtained is 55,500,000. Under the proposed bill, if the manufacturers hold their own, and the most sanguino friend would not dream of that the loss In revenue would be 52,000.000. If the, manufactures were entirely driven out and all our wares should be imported the loss of revenue even then would be a 882,00). The crockery schedule seems hardly to be managed with a view to revenue.

It would of course be utterly impossible to follow into details the reasons which have induced the changes made by the bill. They seem to be the result ot information obtained in secret, and in nowise communicated to the republicans on the committee, All the public hearings and public testimony have been- set aside and the bill has been framed on information ot witnesses who havo not been cross-examined and whose testimony has not visited the light of day. Effects of the New Rill. While it would be impossible to specify the probable effects of this bill, u lew of the most important may be briefly touched upon. As to the future relations between Canada and the United States, it perhaps would not be decorous for us to talk fully, but there are those who believe that what they think is the manifest destiny of this continent is one nation and one market and one development Those who have that thonght. in their minds as they scan the bill will see how little this bill, i compared with existing law. conduces to that I end. Those on the other hand who -look upon the Dominion simply as another nation will be surprised to see how freely is accorded to her privileges and opportunities in derogation of those of our own citizens, privileges and opportunities for which the Dominion would be glad to give ample and unstinted concessions. By this bill they receive them all without i money and without price. Another serious general objection to the bill is that it decreases the revenue according to the calculations usually made by the treasury uepariment sis compared with 1893 about 174,090,000. This large deficit, coming as it does upon a depleted treasuryi is rather appalling in a bill for revenue only. How this great hole in our resources, as a nation, is to be filled, no one knows. At this date not even the committee knows itself, unless the president, anticipating in his message to congress the report of the committee on ways and means, shall afford to the committee itself its wished for clew. Against the consideration of such a bill creating such a deficit and leaving it unaccounted for, the minority vainly protested when the bill was laid before the committee. Who would dare, if of sound and statesmanlike mind, to create a deficit of 474,000,000 and blindly vote it with no plan in sight whereby the government could meet its expenditures? That same protest we make to the house and to the country. While as patrty men we might rejoice at its passage, as citizens of the United States we think the exigencies of the present time are superior to evea the most desired political advantage, and advise that the bill do not pass.