Tombstone weekly epitaph., 1882-09-02
THE TARIFF COMMISSION AT
 WORK. z.

of special interests, and are doubt lessly being amazingly enlightened as to the cunninges. methods of tax ing one class of citizens for the bsne- fit of another. The arguments being made before them by the presidents, superintendents, agents and feed at torneys of special industries, must naturally run in the groove of nar- rowed and selfish policy, and while they may familiarize the commission with each particular industry present. ed for their consideration, they will scarcely enable it to discriminate be- tween the private and restricted in- terests of the particular classes and the broad catholic rights and inter ests of the general public. That these arguments and statements arc full of interest, both to the commiss- ion and the people, no one will deny, but are they calculated to expand the views of the commissioners and so enlighten them as to fit their minds or form their inclinations to formu- late system that shall have due re- gard for the peoples side of the question? Shese representatives of specialties do not argue the effect of their protection on other interests, nor indeed are they expected to look after other interests than their own. Their statements are confined to the estimated advantages to their own special business and their argu- ments are necessarily ex parte
 They show how the tariff affects the private or special interest they represent, and their arguments are so shaped as to convince the commis- sion that the tariff ought to be so adjusted as to afford ample protec. ton and the. largest proportion of advantage to themselves. They arc not concerned in the rights and in- terests of the masses of the people. They seem profoundly impressed with the fact that the commission was or ganized in the interests of the pro- tectionists and monopolists, and it never for a moment occurs to them . that the ffty-odd millions of people of the common country have any rights or interests that the commis- sion is bound to respect. The fact that this class of persons were spe- officially invited to appear before the commission to enlighten it as to the workings of the tariff, is evidence of purpose to give more concern to the protection of the "infant indus tries" than to the interests of the people at large. The commission has thus far practically confined its hearings to these special interests, and so far as the public knows the great questions of political economy and the science of government as it relates to revenues have been totally ignored. To quote q valued ex- change: "To-day it is the steel man. ufacturers who tell the commission how the tariff ought to be arranged to suit them; tomorrow it is the silk manufacturers; next day it is the sugar re6ners; and the day after it is the sugar growers. Then come in regular order, the Eastern pot tery manufacturers, the woolen manufacturers, the knit-goods manu. facturers, the wood-screw manufac- turers, the paper manufacturers, and and procession of other manufac- turers having their establishments in the East, all eager to convince the commission that the tariff which pro- tects them respectively ought to be made higher; or, at least, ought not to be made lower. These special in- terests are able to act promptly and efficiently in presenting their claims before the commission, but those on whom these protective duties fall like an indirect tax, the consumers of the country, have no hearing be- fore the body"
 There is some hope, however, that the very conflict between the favored industries, and their unseemly soram- ble for special advantages in the re. vision of the tariff, will successfully discover to the commission how protective duty which enables one manufacturer to plunder lniures an- other, and how the complexity, the selishness, the sectional and partial character, and the utter unreason. ableness of the whole protective sys- tenn, operates to the detriment of the al