The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-13 00:00:00

CONCLUSION.

It was originally the intention of the Commis-
sioner to discuss, in connection with this report, the
relations of the present tariff to revenue and do-
mestic industry ; the practicability of converting
duties now ad valorem into specific, and the results
of a comparison of the prices of labour and of raw
material, and of the conditions of production in the
United States, and in Europe. So much space has,
however, been occupied by the topics already pre-
sented, that he has thought it expedient to make the
subjects now passed over the basis of a subsequent
report; especially as some further time is necessary
to render their exhibit more complete and satis-

factory.
A review of the revenue systems of Great Britain,
France, and Prussia will, however, be found in
the appendix to this report marked E. With this
explanation, I have the honour to be, yours, very
respectfully,

DAVID A. WELLS,
Special Commissioner of the Revenue.

From the Anglo-American Times.)

The Report of the Hon. DAVID A. WELLS is the
most cheery document that has
.for a long time
crossed the Atlantic from the United States. The
industry and commerce of the country is, notwith-
standing appearance, not only in a healthy con-
dition, but the most prosperous in the world. The
epidemic of commercial disaster that has passed
over the world has affected America in common
with all countries, but in a lesser degree than
England and France, although the circumstances
were such as to justify people in looking for far
more ruin in America than in Europe. It is, in-
deed, almost impossible to check the growing pros-
perity of the United States, and whatever may be
the temporary difficulties generated by a false
policy, or by a great disaster, the aggregate
of individual energy and prosperity carries the na-
tion triumphantly through it. Our space last week
was so fully occupied by the proceedings in Con-
gress that the RepOrt of the Special Commissioner
we now publish was unavoidably postponed. Our
readers who glance over it will be reassured as to
the future prospects of the United States on all
material points. Considering the circumstances,
the figures given are marvellous indications of the
industrial power of the nation. The United States
is suffering from a state of things generated by a
prodigious war. From being untaxed, its citizens
have become the most heavily taxed of all people.
With society in the Southern States transformed,
with the relations between capital and labour there
wholly changed, with the old channels of commerce
almost obliterated, and while labouring under the
effects of a world-wide financial panic—Mr. WELLS
is able to convey to the nation the gratifying infor-
mation contained in his Report. When the duty
of providing a revenue equal to those of the greatest
monarchies of Europe suddenly fell on the legisla-
tors
of the United States, it was not to be expected
that they could at once wisely and fairly adjust
the burdens. The science of political economy was
new ; and as they had to act immediately they
could not fail to commit grave errors. But how-
ever wise might have been their legislation, having
no machinery to bring it into operation, the Exe-
cutive they had to create for the purpose, would
necessarily be far from perfect. It required time to
point out blunders, and experience to rectify them,
as well as to qualify their instruments to bring into
operation the checks required to enforce honesty.
Mr. M'CuLLoca is an able Minister; and he has an
able coadjutor in Mr. WELLS. But the vanity of
Congress has hitherto prevented the nation benefit-
ing as largely as it ought from the knowledge and
skill of these financiers. Mr. WELLs points out not
only how the internal revenue might be reformed,
but how it might be honestly collected. He states
that over 50 per cent. of the amount of the internal
revenue taxes is received into the National Trea-
sury, and as that sum for 1867 amounted to
$265,920,474, it follows, if he be correct, that an
equal sum was lost to the nation by the dishonesty
and incompetency of its agents. That the taxes
should be so adjusted as to be easy of collection,
and so collected tha, none escaped, and all went into
the Treasury, are the great points for which Mr.
WELLS strives. The tax on distilled spirits has been
placed at a rate so tempting to fraud, " that aver-
age human nature, as it exists in the United States,
is not able to resist it. One gallon in three is all
that pays duty, and it is no wonder that he calls the
attention of Congress to the fact that the officers
selected to collect the tax and supervise the manu-
facture have not been chosen for honesty, intelli-
gence, and business capacity, as the first, only, and

essential qualifications. Ile annexes a review of the 1
revenue systems of Great Britain, France, and Prussia, I
which last year he was dispatched on a special
mission to investigate, and he recommends a Board
of Commissioners, consisting of an Assistant-Com-
missioner of the Treasury, a Commissioner of In-
ternal Revenue, a Commissioner of Customs, and
two solicitors, to examine applicants for revenue
officers, and make rules for collecting revenue.
All the facts contained in this report prove that
sound legislation and official honesty alone . are
required to bring back the days when a national
debt was neither known nor felt in the United
States. Since the war $266,000,000 have been paid
towards the reduction of the debt ; the only in-
stance recorded in history of a people making the
attempt immediately on the cessation of a war, to
discharge the obligations thereby entailed. But it is
not to a continuance of such an effort that the finan-
ciers of the United States look for a reduction of the
burden. Immigration is flowing into the country
at the annual rate of over 300,000, adding, accord-
ing to Mr. WELLS, $150,000,000 to the national
wealth. It is a common saying among Ameri-
cans that old-world maxims and experience
do not hold with them—and this may be so far
true, that what would ruin beyond redemption any
European country, scarcely checks the prosperity
of the Republic. Practically, it is no more true
than that the blow which only staggers a hale,
strong young fellow, but kills a feeble old man,
is not to be avoided by both, though not in
an equal degree, for what is mere recklessness in
the one would be insanity in the other. It is pass-
ing strange to glance at what the United States
has endured within less than a decade, with so
slight a check. A great war—not against a
foreign enemy, but in the heart of the Union
striking at her vitals, herself the battle-field, and
she bearing both the loss of Mile victor, and of the
vanquished. Following on this prodigious waste,
Southern society is revolutionized, her rich staples
annihilated, and her population pauperised ; a
huge debt weighing down the North, a clumsily
adjusted system of taxation, and a corps of collectors,
who swindle the Treasury which employs them of
some £40,000,000 sterling a year. Yet, in the face
of all, the National Debt has been reduced by
forty millions sterling, and the country is less
affected by the commercial convulsion following
the close of the war, than England, or France, or
India, or any other country which benefited so
largely by that very conflict. Americans are, how-
ever, too practical a people long to endure a cum-
brous and ineffective system of collection. The
House Committee on Ways and Means has called
Mr. WELLS to assist 'in its deliberations, and he
has for some time attended upon its Sessions.
Influenced by his advice, the following re-
solution has been reported to the louse—" That
$150,000,000 of revenue shall be considered as the
amount of revenue to be obtained from internal
taxes, and that the same, as far as possible, be col-
lected, from—first, distilled spirits and fermented
liquors; second, tobacco and manufactures of
tobacco ; third, stamps ; fourth, special taxes ; fifth,
incomes ; sixth, dividends ; seventh, luxuries and
amusements; eighth, banks and railroads ; ninth,
legacies and successions, leaving the least possible
sum to be collected from industrial pursuits, or re-

lieving that class of interests entirely." Vie are
too prone to imagine individual instances of loss
ramify through whole classes; to conclude that stag-
nation in branches of manufacture is national in its
effects, and to argue from small things up to mighty
results, feeling confident that everything is going
wrong because those around us with whom
,we
come most in contact are injuriously affected.
Thus when it is announced that the firm of A. T.
STEWART and Co. sold in 1867 $30,000,000 less
dry goods than in the preceding year, and that
CLAFLIN and Co. sold $20,000,000 less, convincing
proof is supposed to be furnished that the trade of

;he United §cates is going to ruin. When a long

list is published of mills in the New England States
either stopping or reducing work ; when hands
in thousands seek employment in the great cities ;
when the customs and internal revenues decrease
general expenses are curtailed, and a strong party
arise who seek to repudiate the national debt,
people think the ccuntry is going to the bad.
Such impressions, however, vanish before the figures
of a Minister who can accurately state the whole
business of the nation. If one industry lags, another
pushes on ; if one production falls, another rises ;
if one State or group of States is depressed, another
State or group of States is buoyant and prosperous ;
and on balance it is found that the nation pro-
gresses, daily growing wealthier and more populous.
It is clear from the Report on which we comment

:hat on the removal of the causes hitherto acting so

injuriously—for if the country progressed in spite
of them all combined, many of them excep-
tional in the highest degree its advance under more
favourable circumstances must astonish even its own
citizens. One thing only can permanently injure
the United States, and that is the adoption of a re-
pudiation policy, which, sullying its fair fame, would
for a century annihilate its credit in all markets.