Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1893 — THE TARIFF BILL. [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF BILL.

••■.•' 7 '«■ —■— Bynum’s Kstimats —McKinley's Ideas Tom Reed's Rawterfra Means Committee, has issued a statement concerning the work of the committee on the bill, the main points in which an as follows: ■ The Democratic members of the committee on ways and means have felt, as many others could feel, the momentous .“.Tas£“S IK duty assigned them, of framing a tariff bill for a nation of 70,(XD,OUQ of people. KSiSX“«&»S taxation, the culmination of thirty years’ control of the taxing power by a few great Interests, gathering into their train a. host of petty toll-gathering. The committee have welcomed information and counsel from every trustworthy source, and while they do not expect their bill to escape just criticism in all its details, they do present it to the country as the result of months of patient, anxious toil, and of an honest desire to discharge their duty, purged of all taint of local and personal favoritism or prejudice. Its main features two: (1) The adoption, wherever it seemed practicable, of ad valorem instead of specific duties. (2) The freeing from taxes of those great materials of industry that He at the basis of production. Specific rates of duty are objectionable for these reasons. They frequently conceal a rate of taxation too enormous to be submitted to, if exposed in ad valorem terms, as the duty'of 8 cents a hundred pounds on salt in bulk, which amounts, to over 80 per cent, on one of the common necessaries of life. They always bear heavily on the common article used by the masses and lightly on the expensive article consumed by the rich, as a tax of 830 on ail houses would be little or nothing on the great mansion and very high on the humble home.

The boldest innovation of the bill is its large free listof the raw materials. Taxes upon production are double wrongs. They gather and cumulate on the consumers of the finished product. They hurt labor by narrowing the market for what it produces, Coal and iron are the foundations of modern industry. With releases from taxes on their materials there is no limit to the growth of our foreign trade. This will more than compensate the home producers of raw materials, who, tariff or no tariff, control all the interior of the country from any apprehended loss of markets anywhere along the seaboard. Its incalculable advantage to labor is apparent. The duty on castor oil is reduced from 85 to 35 cents per gallon. And the duty on linseed oil. which was revised to 35 cents by the conference committee of the McKinley bill, after each House had openly voted for a lower duty, we put at 15 cents a gallon. Pig lead is reduced from 2 cents to 1 cent. Lead paints are conspicuously reduced. The McKinley bill increased the duty on opium prepared for smoking to 112 a pound in the vain hope of lessening its Importation. The custom house officers on the Pacific coast declare that this increase of duty has simply placed it, in the hands of smuhglers, to the demoralization of the custom service and the loss of over half a million revenue. The proposed duty of $6 a pound is believed to be collectible. In the pottery schedule reductions are made. Plain white ware is decreased from the high schedule in which its mysteriously crowned Itself. Decorated ware is reduced from 60 to 45 per cent, undecorated from 55 to 45 per cent. In common window glass, where close combinations bale kept up the prices of duties averaging a hundred per cent., a reduction of more than one-halt has been made In all the larger sizes. There is no doubt that those rateswill permits very healthy growth of the industry here. In plate glass reductions are made, the largest size from fifty cents to 20 cents per square foot; on silvered, from 60 cents to 35 cents. In the Iron and steel schedule we begin with free ore. The discovery of the immense deposits of bessemer ores in the lake regions and the foundry ores in Alabama has rapidly swept us to the leadership of the world in the production of iron and steel and brought near at hand an undisputed supremacy jn the great field of manufaciures. The use of steam shovels reduces thecostof mining to a point where the wages paid "natural labor” are Irrelevant. Pig iron we reduce from 86.72 per ton, which is from 50 to 90 per cent, to the uniform duty of 22X t»or cent., a rate somewhat-higher iti proportion than the the rest of the schedule, because of cheap freight rates on foreign pig, it being a favorite freight on westward voyages. Steep rails we reduce from $13.48 per ton. now 75 percent., to 25 per cent. Tin plates are reduced to 40 per cent., a little more than one-half of the JlcKinley rate. This ig a revenue-duty/ and at the same time enough to permit any existing mills to live aud flourish. Cheaper grades of pocket cutlery are 35 per cent., the higher grades 45. Table cutlery is put at 35 per cent. , '

A Sentinel correspondent obtained from Mr. Bynum a statement of the proposed changes in the tariff that are of especial interest to Indiana Industries, as follows: Earthenware and pottery schedule—Encaustic tile reduced from 45 to 25 per cent,; decorated, from 45 to 40 per cent. Common brown earthenware, from 25 to 20 per cent. Plain white granite ware, from ,55 to 30 per cent. Plain china from 55 to 40. Decorated china, from 60 to 45. Glass, large size plate glass, 25 per cent; to 18 cents per square foot and 50 to 30 per square foot. The present rates upon an ad valoram basis are 71 and 138 per cent., while the proposed rates would be 39 and 75 per centum. Window glass is reduced from Ifc. IX. 2% and 3M cents per pound to IX. IM and IX cents per pnund, the presen tad valorem being 49, ICO, lift, 120 and 115 per centum, while the proposed rates will give 35. 53, 56, 57 and 55 per centum, *lron—Pig iron is reduced from WF3 per ton to 22X per centum, about 8250 jier ton. Steel ingots and slabs, from an - average ad valorem of 38 to 25 per contain. Bar iron from 55 to "0 per centum ad valorem. Steel rails from about 50 to 25 per centum, or a. reduction from 813 to 36.50 per ton. Wire rods from 33 to 70 per centum. Sheet stool and saw plates from 43 to 35 per centum. Galvanized from 38 to 35 per centum. Black plates from 61 to 35 per centum. Tin plates frpm 75 to 40 per centum. Woolen schcdule—Tne largest reductions occur in the woolen schedule by reason of the raw material having been placed in the free list Blankets are reduced from 87 and 101 t 025, 10 and 35 per centum. Woolen cloth from <7.141 and 161 to 40 per centum. Ladies* dross goods from an average of 98 to 40 per centum. Clothing from 82 to 45 per cen>um. CarpHs, ambnsson from 59 to 35 per v-ntum: saxnny, melton and tourney from JO to 30 per centum; brnssels 80 to 30 preen turn: tapestry 76 to 25 per centum, and ingrain 64 to 45 per centum. The reductions in the cotton schedule are In the same proportion as that in tbe woolen allowing for free wooL Few items <n the McKinley bill escape reduction. Gov. McKinley was at Clevelend when . he received the news of the publication of 'he Wilson bill. In regard to Mr. Wilon’s statement, he said*. ■_. It was such a measure as he abad exacted. yet a little more »wi eping than he >ad anticipated. It was, however, fa no. with the expressed determination of he Democracy to ignore the business inrests and the working peopk of the >nntry. The objectionable feature of ba bill, Mr. McKinley Mid, was the sub-

declared, had valorem rewmtoat fa can never be dependedupon. Frauds were certain to develop under the ad valorem system. Mr. -McKinley quoted TTtonrv OIILV AAvincp thnt it k® Rw uoMij via>y us aiiyiiig viiuL IL lie Cvuiu ill the value he did not care what the ad valorem was. ' Ex-Speaker Tom Reed, a member of tbs "Of course ft is very easy for the gentlemen who prepared the bill to give their views, since they have been busily engaged in the work for a number of weeks, while the first the minority heard of ths -w»*a ”08 WUilj. IJlv UCHjOCIchV/ DSw taken the lion’s share of the committee; they have done this for a purpose, for while the Northern Democrats are represented on the committee they are represented in such a way that the South holds a strange and very unfortunate predomination. As their Industrial status la very much different from the average of ths whole country ft necessarily follows, and absolutely, in fact, has followed, that ths bill is about as bad as could be reasonably Imagined. This may not be true with regard to every item, but ft is certainly true with regard to tire important matters in the blu.**