National Republican., 1882-11-24
The Surplus Revenue.

The Surplus Revenue.
Our Democratic neighbor is very much
exercised for fear something will happen
TO the whisky tax. His party is nearly
unit for its abolition. He finds some
Republicans of the same way ofthinking.
The customs dues will not enable the
government to meet its obligations unless
there is an increased revenue from duties
on imports, which can only come through
great reductions in the tariff, causing a
still greater increase of importations.
That imports of articles not manufactured
or produced in the United States could
be made to yield more revenue by aye
duction of duties in some cases, which
would increase their consumption, and
by an increase in other cases, is quite
possible, but not demonstrable. Only by
experiment can the effect upon the rev.
enue of the reduction of the duty on any
given article be ascertained.
The people will not approve any re-
duction in the duties on articles which
can be manufactured or produced in the
United States, by which reduction the
handiwork of our own workingmen can
be undersold by the importers O. foreign
goods. The revision of the tariff must
come slowly, as we think, and expert
mentally, and not by any great revolu-
tionary measure. "a tariff for revenue
only" would be one SO adjusted as to pro-
vide all the money needed by the gov
ernment, and might or might not be pro-
a, $50 II
manufacture should be found necessary
for revenue, the tariff reformers would
shut up our factories in order that the
customs duties should be swelled to the
desired amount. The building up of the
industries of other nations and the de-
struction of our own, in order that all we
consume may pay toll at the custom
house for revenue" is un-Amcrican and
pusillanimous.
The admission of foreign goods upon
the payment of such duties as will afford
our people the benefit of reasonable
competition between all wel-established
industries at home and those abroad
without giving the latter the uncompen-
sated advantage of foreign rates of wages,
has few opponents.
Changes in the tariff which may be
expected to reduce our surplus revenue
In accordance with the public interest
and the popular demand cannot be safely
made at any one session, because the re-
suit might be to so increase imports as
20 swell the reve nues instead of dimin-
,shing them, or it might 50 injure do
mestic enterprises by competition, and
SO depress business in general by the
very doubt created rs to the volu me of
revenues to come in, that imports would
be insufficient to yield what had ap-
scared to be safe estimates. Better to
bear the ills we have than fly to others
that we know not Of
The customs receipts can now be pretty
nearly estimated. If the objective point
is really such reduction of the taxes as
will leave no surplus as n temptation to
extravaganza and dishonesty, the total
abolition of any given tax or duty is the
Dnly way to make sure of the end. A
mere reduction may increase the recei pts,
and thus leave larger surplus for the
lobby to grab for.
For these reasons we are opposed to
wholesale tariff revisi on and in favor of
the abolition Of all interna!-revenue
taxes erccpt that on wLishy. This would
surely abate the surplus TO the extent
that would be safe. We do not advocate
the present maintenance of the whisky
tax on moral grounds only, as does our
morning contemporary in one Of his cdi-
torials yesterday, nor for the wholly
different purpose of compelling reduc-
tion of the tariff, as he did in another
editorial of the same issue. Thus;
MORAL ARGuMl:sr TO RE- PARTISAN ARGUMENT TO