Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1896 — WHEN DOES A LAW MATURE? [ARTICLE]

WHEN DOES A LAW MATURE?

Indianapolis Journal. The coarse pursued by the framers and defenders of the present tariff Jaw suggests the inquiry, when does a law cease to be a baby act? Leaves have their time to fall, human beings pass from childhood through boyhood and girlhood to adult years, and all animals have their time of maturing, When does a tariff law mature? The present law took effect Aug. 27, 1894. Its framers claimed it would afford immediate relief by reducing the burdens of taxation, and, as soon as business adjusted itself to the new conditions, would furnish ample revenue. The law has been in force seventeen months, and in fourteen of those months the revenues have failed to meet th j expenditures. The 'monthly dvuvit since the law went into effect was sl,212,780 and the largest was $13,573, 800. The total deficit during the seventeen months of its operation is $74,164,296. Ever since the law went into effect, its friends have been predicting good results from it as soon as it got fairly in operation, and have been asking a suspension of public judgment in regard to it. They have said it is a new act, only in its infancy yet; wait till it has become a full grown law and had a fair trial. The friends of the last tariff law before this one, commonly called the McKinley law, an act for pro-

tection and revenue, did not ask , for any suspension of public judgi! ment in regard to it That law I matured very early. In fact, it j was born mature and was fully grown from the beginning. No monthly deficit ever occurred (under it. During the first seventeen months of its operation it yielded §512,581,173 of revenue, against §459,003,720 under the present law. At the end of seventeen months of the McKinley law

the surplus of revenues over expenditures was while during seventeen months of the pffesent law the ; expenditures have exceeded the revenues $74,164,196. The friends of the McKinley law never had to plead the baby act Ever since the present law was passed the secretary of the treasury has been trying to strengthen and popularize it by his estimates and predictions. In the language of the stock market he has been trying to “bull” thelaw.» On Dec. 3, 1894, after it had been in operation three months, he estimated

that the receipts under it during the present fiscal year, ending next June 30, would be $300,000,000. As regular as the monthly report showed a deficit he predicted an increase just ahead. The law was new yet and would work better soon. After it had been in operation fifteen months, namely, on Dec. 10,1895, he eent another estimate to congress admitting that the revenues for the current fiscal year would be only $345,000,00Q, instead of as he bad estimated a year before. From present indications they will fall much short of the last estimate. In his estimate of Dec. 3, 1895, the secretary predicted a surplus of $28,814,920 during the current fiscal year. In his last estimate he admits a probable deficiency of $17,000,000, and from present indications it will be nearly double that Still, the friends of the law insist that time will show it is a good one. They call attention to the fact that the ’ deficit in January was “only” $3,459,159, whereas during some months since the law was passed it has been much greater. They say it is unfair to condemn a law without giving it a fair trial, and they still ask a suspension of public judgment The question is, when will the law mature, and if it has produced a deficit of more .than $74,000,000 in seventeen mcnths how large a deficit will it have caused by the time it gets ot t of its babyhood.