New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-10-18
TARIFF TESTIMONY CLOSED.

The close of public sessions of the Tariff
Commission would have attracted much more
attention if political campaigns had not been in
progress. The general interest taken by manu-
facturers, miners and business men in the do
ings of the Commission has been shown in the
extraordinary variety of the statements sub
United. 1t seems as if almost every branch
and kind of business had been represented
before the Commission by men who had
labored to set forth the practical workings OF
the tariff as it affects their interests, ana to
explain what changes, If any, they believe
would be for their advantage. 1t has pleased
Democratic and Free Trade organs to treat
these statements with contempt and often with
abuse. But there is nothing dscredltable in
the general desire manifested to secure more
favorable adjustment of duties. 1t is the very
essence of the protective system that it seeks
to adapt legislation to the actual and varying
circumstances of different branches of industry,
and does not subject all to the operation of a
stupid, cast-irOn rule as unbending and cruel
as it must be blind and unreasOning. Men
who are content to adopt a tariff because it
COMFORTS with some abstract theory, not caring
whether it destroys this or that industry, are
not the sort of persons who are making laws
for the country this year.
1t has been made a reproach that nearly all
witnesses before the Commission have urged
the desirableness of higher duties. But it is in
the nature of things inevitable that every man
should see clearly the possibility of securing
larger development and higher prosperity for
the particular industry in which he is engaged,
by means of greater security against foreign
comuetitiOn but should not see as clearly the
injurious consequences which might result to
that as to all other industries, from general
advance of duties beyond the limit OF reason.
1t is for the Commission to overlook the whole
field, and to take into account the advance of
prices, and the enhancement of the cost OF
production and Of living, which an increase of
this or that duty might cause, and thus to judge
of the general effect of measure proposed
| upon all industries and upon the prosperity of
the whole country. The Commission will not
| forget that any cheapening of raw materials
| benefits an industry as much as IL corresponding
mere ase of duty on its finished products. In
nearly all cases, 1t is possible to secure higher
| measure of protection by either of these two
methods, and the very duty for which, it has
been hoped, a Commission would be competen t,
as Congress clearly was not, is to determine in
what way to make the tariff confer greater
benefits upon industry. We strongly suspect
that it may recommend reduction of duties n
many more cases than increase of duties, and it
is entirely possible to make the general average
of duties lower and thereby to make the tariff
more thoroughly and effectively protective.
Whatever method the Commission may de-
eide upon, its recommendations will be
opposed with intense and indecent hostility by
many Democrats, for purely partisan reasons.
Hence it has been constantly asserted that the
work of the Commission would come to
nothing and was a mere farce. But it is in the
power of the Commission to frame recon-
mcndations which shall be adopted, and sup
ported as party measure, by the majority in
the present Congress. The elections render