Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1888 — The War Taxes. [ARTICLE]

The War Taxes.

It is frequently stated that war taxes are still retained in the United States, when as a matter of fact they have been reduced from time to time since 1868, so that now they are about half what they were atyhe highest point Duties on imports were reduced in 1872, 1875 aid 1883 by placing articles on the free list and diminishing rates. According to the recent report of the Bureau of Statistics, in 1868, the average dH valorem rate of duty on all imports into this country was then 46 1-2 per cent.; in 1875 it was 38 per cent.; ill 1879 it was 28 1-2 per cent. By a reduction of prices since 1884, but not by any change of ! duties, the average duty on all imports last year was 32 per cent. The average duties collected on all imports, free as Well as dutiable, from 1824 to 1833 was 46 1-2 per cent. Even in tire “low tariff” era between 1846 and 1857, the average duty thus collected w;is 20 per cent. —only 2 1-2 per cent, less than m 1884. The significant the tariff of 1846-or the Mills bill, and the present tariff or the revised protective tariff now proposed by the Republicans, consists ip the fact that the tariff of ' 1846, as well as the Mills bill, imposed much lower duties on imported manufactured goods which would come into competition with the products of our own industries, than those now imposed, while on the other hand the tariff of 1846 imposed heavier duties on tea, coffee and many other articles not produced here, which are placed on the free last or lightly taxed by the present

tariff- The Mills bill now imposes 68, per cent on sugar and n)0 per cent, on sce. For example in 1854, of the 276 trillions of imports, only*22 1-2 pi* one thirteenth, came In free of! duty; while in 1884 of the 07 1-2 millions, 21-1.-4 millions, or one-third, came in fra; gs duty. '