Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1870-06-16
9olitifal.
The Tariff in the House.

The Revenue Reformers have been
forced to show their hands. Henceforth
they may be better known as the Reve-
nue. Destroyers. The question was one
of the reduction of taxes and duties. 1t
was question of taking forty-five mil
lions of direct taxation from the people,
whose sad lot they profess TO deplore =
of taking twenty millions off the duties
which they profess to regard as so enor-
nous. Did these Revenue Reformers
hasten to aid this proposition of relief?
Were they eager for lower duties keen
to diminish the load of the burdened
people alert to aid by voice and vote
the removal at one stroke of sixty-hve
millions?
They were too wise to commit them
selves TO open opposition,-tha would
have been fatal. But they resisted pro-
gress. They quarreled with details.
They were ready for everything save
what the necessities of the Government
and the condition of the House made
practicable. They skulked behind the
Democrats, encouraged filibustering,
quibbled over minutie, avoided going on
the record, and did their best in an uu-
derhanded, indirect, disingenuous way,
to defeat the very objects they professed
to seek. They had been for a reduction
of taXes-here it was, to the extent of
forty-five millions, and it got no aid at
their hands, SO long as they could possi-
bly, retard without actually opposing it.
They had been for reduction of duties,
here it was on the necessaries of life,
and ON the Pig Iron whereof they had
50 dolorously made lament, and they
hung back till Schenck drove them into
a corner from which they could not es-
cape. Coffee, Tea, Sugar, the poor mans
luxaries, were perpetually cited as the
moIstrosities of Tariff iniquity here
was proposition in the poor mans in
| terest, and they did their best, like the
Priest and the Levite, to cross over and
pass it by. They were in favor of the
! theory of reduction in taxes and duties,
| but against its enforcement. They pro-
fessed to want moderate duties. What
| they did want was Free Trade. They
called themselves Revenue Reformers.
! What they wanted to make themselves
was Revenue Destroyers.
We heartily rejoice that with their
aid, and in spite of their false friendship.
the Republican party has been able to
add to the financial honors of this Ad-
ministration by offering reduction of
SiXty-five Millions in the popular bur
dens The payment of the Debt goes
on. The prospect offunding the remain
der at a largely reduced rate of interest
are brighter. The Government fulfills
and means to fulfill all its obligations to
the letter. And it is able, meanwhile,
to take two-fifths off the duty on Coffee
and Tea, to reduce largely the duty on
! Sugar, to concede two dollars per tun to
the perpetual clamor against the duty on
Pig Iron, and to add largely to the arti-
cles on the free list. All this is accom-
plished in the bill which. after the most
virulent opposition, has just been forced
through the House; and in addition the
Ways and Means Committee has been
instructed to report bill removing alto
gether the duty on Coal. The bill pass
ed is not altogether such as we would
have it but it is a measure of substan-
tial and in the main judicious relief,
opposed, wherever opposition seemed
safe, by the Revenue Reformers, and
carried by the persistent efforts of the
Tariff men. We joyfully announce its
passage, and look confidently to the
Senate for approval.-[NeD York T'a-
6une.