New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1861-04-03
Tue ABOLITION OF TARIFFS.


1851, excepting occasionally in some petty con-
traband adventures by German Jews and small
rogues of that sort, so probably we shall be en-
abled to resist the not greater temptation to
fraud of the tariff of 1861. The man who evades
the revenue laws altogether, does not care
whether duties are five per centnm or five hun
dred while he who only proposes to do shrewd
and profitable thing by paying duties in South
ern ports at the rate of the old tariff, and so
getting his goods into the Northern States without
paying the new duties, has been wasting great
many years in honest trade if that is his DISPOSE
ton. For, as we have frontier from PASSPORT
Mainc to Vancouyers Island, a great deal
more could have been made, and made
easily any time since 1857 by bring
ing in goods over that extended line by
land or by water, than can possibly be now
made by saving the duty under the Morrill, tariff
on goods struggled over the the Southern frontier
which have already paid duty in Southern port
under the tariff of 81. So far "a temptation
goes, therefore, we think that may be considered
as disposed of. Those who have resisted it
hitherto will resist it hereafter, at least until
it is very much greater than it is at present
Tn, Ertning Post, which frightened itself and its
readers day or two ago, with an alarming
prophecy of the reign Of impending scoundresm,
may pull on its nightcap and dOze again, In the
harmless way it has go long done, over that
charming abstraction, Free Trade, which exists
as yet nowhere, and never has existed among
civilized nations 1t would be quite as reasonable
to coniure up u return of those Jolly days when
highwaymen were distinct class, and it was as
dangerous to cross Hounslow Heath at might az it
now is to cross the Desert Of Sahara, as to fear
| the return of that era of smuggling, when tho
want of industrial pursuits always kept up race
d men fit for any desperate service, and whore
| the contraband trade consisted of articles abso-
| utely prohibited but which were either Of abso-
Lutte necessity or of imperious luxury, which the
poor could not, or the wealthy would not do with
out We are as likely to return to that dispensatOn
! of society, as We are to the daily use of chain
amor
| No more senscless clamor has ever been raised
| than thi, against the Morrill, tariff. Its chief
opponents permit themselves to be " stuffed"
| by interested importers with certain plausible
but false statements, designed only to mislead
| the public. For two years and q half, this
measure has been before the country, and, while
| The Post has avOwed its approval Of o revenue
tariff, il has little other objection TO urge this
this particular bill than upon the general grounds
| Of its free-trade principles. IL is chiefly since
| the bill has become a law that it has opposed
il IA n practical measure, and that before 1t has
| been tried, and when to repeal IL would be n
/ weak concession TO rebels and traitors. If the
! bill were even open to some Of the objections
that have been urged against it, it ought not to
/ le repealed az this moment for the simple rea-
son that foreigners who wish ~ grow rich at our
| expense and rebels who propose to subdue us,
arc alike DESTROYS TO get rid of it.
The Post and possibly some other papers
which have joined in this outcry, know perfectly
well that, 80 far as the South aud the question
| Of smuggling is concerned, the question is not
whether we viii have the tariff Of 81 or that
/ If ~, but whether We shall have absolute free
| trade Should the Morrill, bill be repealed, and
that of - restored, practical men know very
well that We should be- worse of than ever ii
| the South It'll, with the intention Of attracting
trade TO her doors should then enact bill
! that has already been introduced 10 the at
/ tenlon OF the Congress Of Montgomery. The
| difference between that proposed Law aud the
tariff OF - is very much greater than the diler-
ence between the law of % and that Of the
| last Congress, and the temptation 10 smuggle
! would be proportiOnaly increased. The South
! has no manufactures, and lives altogether upon