New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-06-04

him. They have taken him up and terribly ex-
posed him on such, and such variety Of, topics
as these The Farmers question, as it involves
prices under the existing tariff and state OF tho
currency. On this point they convict him Of
exaggeratoD, and partial presentment, and
settled purpose to cultivate discomfort with
the manufacturing capitalists and labOrers Of
the country with the additional charge Of
ARRIVING the laborer against the farmer in his
report of 1863, and now in 1869 provoking tho
farmers against their laboring consumers by
similar misstatcments needless alike of self.
contradiction and OF honest fulness Of facts in
both instances. On wool and wOOens they
meet him with the unimpeached facts and
figures which TIE TRIBUNE has 80 fro
quently given in refutation OF the Com
missioner's Report. On our cotton manufac-
lures the Commissioner has written with the
malignity of partisan, and adduced statistics.
and INDUCED in estimates, with all the preju-
dice of an enemy The half-dozen pages of
the Committee devoted to him on this ono
subject have more demoishing force thar any
thing but his official authority could possibly
| warrant On prices production cost. and guam
| titles of gunny bags, SALT coal, lumber, tho
protective force Of freight, the character Of
our steel trade, and of a number OF other
commodities and special subjects of vast i'm
portance, which the Commissioner manipulates
in the interest OF foreign imports, and in an
| tagonism to domestic production, searching
| and conclusive investigation Overwhelms every
position taken by him and all this so clearly
and plainly that the general reader is made
competent to judge, and experts are only sur
prised that such mixture of cunning and
incompetency could be condensed into any
man in the position and having the four
years training of the Commissioner
1t is hard to believe that such blunders and
abuses as the Committee expose could get into
an official paper; but We submit specimen
of this mans capabilities on one of the PLAIN
est subjects, about which nobody can feel any
doubt of his own ability to understand and To
decide between the Committee and the Com
missioner:
The Commissioner recommends a reduction
of duties on iron, steel lead, tin, and manu-
features of the same, to such specific rates AZ
shall amount to % per cent adj vaorem, and
calculates that they will yield fifteen millions
of revenue, which of course would require an
import value of sixty millions. Now the inn
ports of these articles in 1869 yielded nineteen
millions, and their value was but forty-three
millions In justification of his proposed re-
duction of the rate of duties from 45 to % per
cent he says Under an abatement or repeGI
" of the duty no more pig iron would be I'M
"ported than at present. Again, he says A.:
" No material increase of imports beng prob
| " able the loss to the revenue would, there
" fore, be approximately S75OOOO from pig iron
" alone- The absurdty of his first statement,
that no more pig iron would be imported IL
the duty were abated or repealed, Is palpable
enough. The reasonabeness of his second
proposition, that the duty would fall OIL three
quarters of a million under such abatement az
| he suggests, if no more were imported Is clear
| enough; but then comes his expectation OF a
| sixty million import under such reduction OF
duty in order to give him his fifteen millions
| of revenue. These perplexing contradictions
stand about twenty-five pages apart in his
| report, and so he forgot that he proposes to
| increase our imports from forty three to sixty
| millions and at the same time, not to increase
| them at all. 1t takes q Free Trade political
| economist to square practice with principle IN
| this happy fashion. He is just as luminous in
| several other distractions in which he INDUCES
when he quits the field of figures for the re-
| gions of speculation. On the 55th and 56th
| pages of his report we have a specimen, where
| he proves that if two dollars of currency get
into circulation where there was only one be-
| fore, the prices of property and labor must be
doubled by their presence. This he proves by
the fact that two plows cannot be employed in
field only big enough for the work of one.
And this philosophy of money, which calls
| money standard of values, and at the same
| time affirms that dollars diminish in value ex-
| actly as they increase in number, he tOrtltea
| by quoting the Hon. Amasa Walker, who he
informs us is the highest American authority
| for the following dogma: "An expanded cur
"rency will be most scarce when 1t Is most
| "dbunddnt, and the rates of interest VIII be
"highest when the loans of the banks
are most extended" The Commissioner
should have quoted this oracle as supporting
analogy when he was showing that the imports
of metals could be increased, diminished, and
not increased ut the same time We submit
| this amendment to the Golden Club for use III
| their new edition of the Commissioners Report.
| The Committee on Manufactures could not,
and did not, pass over the Commissioners
| omission of any detailed exhibition OF the
| growth of our manufactures under the existing
| tariff system, and of the advantages to the
country derived from that growth. This very
thing is specifically charged upon the Commits
sioner by the act creating his Office. He was
reouired 70 inquire into the relations of foreign
trade TO domestic industry" but he employed
himself in depreciating those departments OF
domestic industry which as early as 1854, ac-
| cOrdng to Secretary Guthrie, equaled our
agricultural products in value, and were esti-