Preble County Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1857-1859, 1858-12-09

and, so soon asst is discopered that IBIS
capital can be pTpitablys employed nd
Commercial and manufacturing ehter5
pfises, and in the construction of rail-
roads and other worksSof public and
private improvements, prosperity viii
again smile throughout the land Ut is
vain, however, to disguise the fact from
ourselves that a speculative imitation of
our currency, without a corresponding
imitation in other countries, whose man
ufactures come into competition with
our own, must ever produce disastrous
results to our domestic manufacturers
No tariff, short of absolute prohibition,
can prevent these evil Consequences
In ~eonnection with@fhis subject &c is
proper to refer to our financial coudi-
ton. The same causes which have
produced pecuniary distress throughout
the country have SO reduced the amount
of imports from foreign &C untries, that
the revenue has proved inadequate to
meet the necessary expenses of Gov
ernment. To supply this deficiency,
Congress, by the actrof the r23d uffDe-
cember, 1857, authorized the issue of
twenty million dollars oftreasury=notes,
and this proving inadequate, it lauthor-
lied by the act ofJune Ii, 1853, alloan
Of .S2OsO09,000, to be applied to the
Payment OF appropriations made by law.
No statesman would iadgise-thut- VIC
should SO on increasing the national
debt to9meet the ordinary expenses of
the Government. Z This would be a
most ruinous policy. Itwould be ruin
Gus to continue. to borrow; besides it
N n ho nronor n oh,o,ro lok-k1.
dental protection thus afforded by a,
revenue tariff would at the present mo
ment, to some extent Increase the conf
denee of the NJ" aiacturing interests,
ar give a'fresh impulse to our reviving
business. 20 To, this surely no person will
object In regard to the mode of as
sessing and collecting duties under a
strictly revenue tariff, i have long en-
tertained and often expressed the opiI-
ion that sound policy requires this
should be done by specific duties in
cases to which these can be properly
applied. They are well adapted to com
modities which are usually sold by
weight or by measure, and which, from
their nature are Of nearly equal value.
hSach, for example, are the articles of
iron of different classes, raw sugar, and
foreign wines and spirits. In my de-
l,berate judgment specific du les are the
best if not the only means of securing
the evenue against false and fraudulent
'invasions, and such has been the prac-
tice adopted for this purpose by other
commercial nations. Besides, specific
duties would afford to the American
manufacturer the incidental advantages
to which he is fairly entitled. Under
a evehuc tariff, the present system IS a
sliding scale to his disadvantage; under
it, when prices are high and business
prosperous, the duties rise in amouh
when he least requires their aid. On
the contrary, when prices fall, and he is
struggling against adversely, the duties
are Diminished in, the same proportion.
greatly to his ihjnry. Neither would
there be danger that n higher rate of
duty than that intended by Congress
should be levied inatlle form Of specific
duties.
1t would be easy 10 ascertain fine ar
crage value of any iInporte article for
a series of years. and instead ofsubiect-
ing it to an al rntDreH duty at d certain
rate per eentum, to substitute in its
place an equivalent s~pecifc'duty. BY
such an arrangement the consumer
would not he injured. 1t is true, he
might have toapay n little more adutyton
il given article in one year, but, if SO.
he would pay a little less in another.
and in a series OF years these would
counterbalance each other, and amount
to the same thing. So far as his Inter
est is concerned. the Inconvenience
would be trihing when contrasted with
the additional security thus Afforded
against frauds upon the revenue, in
which every consumer is directly interz
ested. Ihave thrown out these suS-
gestions as the fruit of my own observa-
ton, to which Congress-, in its better
Judgment, will give suck weight as it
may justly deserve. b ''-17r
@ In relation to the transit route across
the Isthmus, the President says the
GovernmentLh has no objection to a de-
mand for a fair compensation, bnt in
sists that hereafter the route shall not
he closed BY an arbitrary decree of the
Government Of Niearagua. He recon-
mends Congress tozpass a law authoriz-
ing him to employ force to prevent the
obstruction or closing Of the transit by
lawlcss violence. A similar necessity
exists for the protection of the Panama
and Tehuantcpec routes.
~ hn HS nussS I