The National tribune., 1882-12-07
THE TARIFF COMMISSION.
Report in Favor Of Moderate Reduction OF the
Duties

n hPpOTI IN fHfOT VI ID hcuuCttOh VA tho
Duties.
The report of the Tariff Commission was sub
mitted to the House of Representatives on
Monday by the president of the commission,
John l.. Hayes. 1t is very long and compre-
hensive document, with an appendix equally
formidable.
The commission declares that high duties
have a tendency to create prejudice, to cause
unsafe investment Of capital, to cause q pie
thora of certain commodities; that the time has
come when reduction from high war rates
can safely be made, and that the increase in
the productions by the older industries is suffi-
cient to admit of reduction without impair
ment of ability to compete.
The reductions on the average and as a
whole approximate twenty per cent, and will
perhaps reach twenty-five per cent. 1t has
been the effort of the Commission to make the
reduction apply to commodities of necessary
general consumption and to diminish or with
hold the reduction upon commodities Of high
cost requiring more labor, and which, being
consumed principally by the more wealthy
classes could bear higher duties at the same
time supplying revenue and encouraging the
higher arts without being oppressive in their
operation.
1t has been sought invariably to make dis
elimination in the rate of duties imposed on a
manufactured product and the raw material or
partly manufactured product of which it is
made the object being to impose higher duty
upon the latter. In some cases the revision has
no regard for the revenue feature, as with books,
the tariff on which is largely reduced in the
interests of education and progress, while that
on works of art is increased, to encourage
American artists.
The report discusses at length the import
ance of American industry and commerce, Civ
ing statistics at length and putting the annual
industrial product Of the country at six billions
of dollars, and showing that the United States
in the matter of productive interests is now the
first country in the world.
Appended to the report is full tariff bill
with schedules and detailed references to fif-
teen schedules describing the Comm ission's
reasons for making the proposed changes.
The reduction fixes the duty on steel rails at
1892 per ton, or eighty cents per one hundred
pounds All other parts of the iron schedule
are consistent with this. There is an entirely
new schedule Of chemicals, based upon scicn-
tifc methods, and a schedule upon metals ar
ranged upon a new plan.
The reduction in wool is said in the report
to be of such character as will commend itself
to the public, the greatest reduction being upon
the article of blankets, upon which the tariff
w9s particularly excessive. No duty is recon-
mended on quinine and the duty on wood-pulp
is abolished, though that on wood and lumber
is retained. Some concessions were made, it is
apparent, to satisfy public opinion and meet the
peculiar wants of various interests.
The report proper, exclusive of the testimony,
makes over 1000 pages, and until it is printed
the details of the changes in the existing tariff
recommended by the committee cannot be sat
isfactOrily stated.