Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-21
PRoTEcr1oErsT ouAcKERY.


touched. Among the more impudent
recommendations is that for the removal of
the tax on quinine, which was one of the
moat ubiquitous imposts any government
ever maintained. As matter of course
the League" recommends the removal
of most of the Internal Revenue taxes.
That has become a sort of forlorn hope
with the Protectioaists. They have been
utterly routed whenever they have at.
tempted to defend the tariff by sober argu.
ment; but if they can get the Internal
Revenue taxes abolished they know that
all hope of tariff revision will be gone, and
they can then afford to rest their case on
the necessity of providing fixed amount
of revenue. This Metropolitan League,
however, seems to have taken very wide
field for the employment of its energies 1t
is not content with regulating the tariff,
but it must undertake the rehabilitation of
the ahipbuilding industry. On this head
it confidently observes "Let Congress
properly give subvention to our mail
transports, and the demand for American
"ships will Immediately prove the falsity
g and absurdity of the assertion that Amer
"icans cannot build ships. and the foolish
assertion that tariff on five per cent. of
:" a ships cost for crude material could
affect the conditions Of our shipping
community" This is fair specimen of
the flippant rubbish which the Protection.
lists utter whenever they approach these
questions.
In the first place nobody has asserted
that Americans cannot build ships" In
the second place it is fat misstatement
to say that there is only tariff of five per
cent. on the material which enters into the
construction of ships. In the third place
it is demonstration Of ignorance to assert
that the subsidizing of mail steamers could
by any possibility revive the ship building
interest. No doubt if Congress was un-
principled and foolish enough to squander
the peoples money in such way, it could
by paying large enough subsidies induce
few ship. builders to build steamers. But
this policy would not revive the shipping
interest. That interest has decayed for
several reasons. One Of the most poten.
OF these has been the substitution of iron
and steel for wood as ship. building mate.
rial. The Navigation Laws and the Re-
bellion, local taxation and number of
minor but vexatious membranes and
restrictions, helped and fastened the decay
of our mercantile marine, and have rem.
dered all recovery impossible. What is
now proposed is an essentially imbeciIe
measure. 1t is. to pay American ship
builders for building the most costly YES.
sells in the world; to maintain all the laws
and the taxes which make them the most
costly vessels in the world and to take |
out of the pockets of the people enough to
make up the difference to them between |
this excess Of cost and the producing price
of the foreign vessels which have taken
away our trade.
w hSSo ASS ACSitaSC W say UtlhL more
hopelessly silly proposition than this could
not be made. But it is worse than silly,
for it is iniquitous. It is no part of the
business of government to build up private
enterprises at the expense OF the commu.
nifty. Hitherto the shipping interest has
been paralyzed by law. The only rational
way to rehabilitate that interest is to re.
move the obnoxious laws. Repeal the
Navigation Laws, let the tariff be modified.
do away with local taxation, put American
ship. building on level with that Of other
countries by giving it freedom, and then if
there is any natural profit in the business
it will revive without artificial help, and
flourish again in few years as it fiourished
prior to 1857. But this subsidy policy is
the feeble recourse of men who are ircapa.
BILE of thinking in straight line. OF
what use is it to pay subsidies fer the
building of ships when our preposterous
tariff drives American ships from the
ocean Subsidies cannot enable ships to
get freight abroad. We may make it worth
the while of the ship owners to run them
without freight, but what good can that do
the country? If we pay men for building
ships and for running them, they will build
and run them to the extent that we make
it profitable to do so. But if we retain
our Tariff and Navigation laws at the same
time we shall never bring about real re.
vival of the shipping interest.
And hew should the granting of ga
"subvention to our mail transports, cause
an immediate "demand for American
"ships?' Was anything ever more in.
consequent and absurd than this kind of "a.
sertion? What has the subvention bust.
ness to do with the creation of demand
for American ships? But with most Pro.
tectionists the idea of a government
subsidy is the essence of wisdom, and q
panacea for all evils. As to the effect of
this kind of argument upon the Tariff Com
mission, it is Of literally no consequence,
since the Tariff Commission is already an
exploded humbug. But the Democratic
party is about to come into power in Con-
gress, and it is possible that it may have
the courage of its convictions this time.
1t is true that the Republicans control
Congress, and that they will continue to
do so until next March. 1t is therefore
possible for them to do something towards
the reduction of taxation and towards the
revision of the tariff. We do not expect any.
thing Of the kind under the circumstances.
because the Republican members of Con.
gress have never shown any enlightenment
in this regard, and because the most of
them will doubtless be too sore this win.
ter to care about doing anything to help
the reputation of a party which has lust
repudiated them, or appeared to do so.
But it would none the less be wise thing
for these Republican members to do, and
it would show that they had taken the
recent lesson to heart.
In any case, however, the Democratic