The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-04
ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.
IGNORANT Talk About the Tariff-A Sample
Free Trade Screed Dissected.


hobbies which he supposes TO be economic
axioms through their PAGES in manner that
shall attract the attention OF all who admire
an intellectual Alexander when he deigns to
cavort upon the back of a Bucephalus in
whose nostril is the lightning and whose
neck is clothed with thunder. If Mr.. Fish
back could only know that the horse he is
riding is wooden one, that it is the product
of the toy dealer and not of the Almighty,
that it is adapted to the wants of children
and of infirm persons of delicate intellectual
health, and not Of chevaliers, sportsmen, or
turf fanciers, it would not be difficult for
him to perceive why it is that the sport
ing bulletins are silent concerning the speed
and pedigree and that his most intimate
friends smile compassionately at his tri
umphs.
Mr.. Fishback has Just INDUCED in consti-
tutional airing in the form of letter on the
tariff to the Hon. Stanton ]. Peelle, the men,
Der of Congress from the Indianapolis dis
trict. In this letter Mr.. Fishback exhibits
as his piece de resistance his total and mid
night ignorance of the distinction between
tariff and tax though the two things sus-
tain to each other in economic science only
the same relation which hog does to sau-
sage. A small portion of hog is converti-
BILE into sausage but on the other hand it
may all be consumed without any sausage
resulting from it. So portions of tariff may
have the effect of tax as to some of the COM
modities on which it rests, and as to others it
may have the effect to relieve the whole
body of American taxpayers from certain
quantity OF taxation by collecting the
amount from foreign producers. This, of
course, Mr.. Fishback does not know and it is
his ignorance of it that marks the supposed
Bucephalus he is riding as "A cheap wooden
toy, which will merely wear his rump with
out atfording him any change of scene. He
says:
Who was it that insisted on q 20 per cent ad
valorem tax on soap, 20 per cent. on tan bark,
rs cents gallon on linseed oil, 25 to so per
brown earbhenware and crockery, 80 per
cent. on slate pencils, cents pound horse
shoe nails 40 per cent. on handsaws, % per cent.
knitting, darning and sewing needles, a
heavy tax on boards lath and shingles. gig to
BE cents per pound on sugar, and cents gal
Ion molasses, and heavy tax every gar
ment of wool. cotton, linen, or leather which a
poor man must weaT7 You tax his shoes, his
socks, rhe needles that knit his socks. his
drawers his shirt, his trousers, his coat, his hat
OF the twenty-four articles here said to be
taxed" it is essentially true that only two
are taxed, viz, sugar and moasses. In say
ing lessen TALLY true'' we mean that the al
lowance to be made for casual exceptions APP
plying to rare and peculiar forms of these
commodities need not be more than one
twentieth For instance Mr. Fishback
has no more right to say that soap is taxed
than to call a hog a sausage. Soap can be
made by every sensible kitchen girl and
farmers wife. 1t involves but three ingre-
dients-grease, potash and intelligence
neither of which by any insuperable neces
sity need be imported from abroad. Potash
results wherever a wood fire is made, grease
accrues wherever a cook is at work, and in
telligence distinguishes nearly every expend-
iture OF nerve force whether by man or the
lower ANIMALS, except the efforts of free
trader to say anything true concerning a
tariff
If Mr. Fishback had ever learned the alb
c's of tariff economy he would know that a
tart # only operates as an absolute tax on
those commodities for which we are wholly
dependent on the foreign supply and that
in the matter OF soap we are only dependent
on the foreign supply for few rare varie-
ties of French, German and English soaps
which are among the luxuries of the toilet
of the fastdious. Even the importation of
these must be matter of taste and not of
necessity, for we exported in 1882 perfumed
and toilet soaps of American manufacture to
thirty-three foreign countries England and
oCOtldnu Delllg our largest PURCHASERS we
exported in 1882 $3.50 pounds of toilet soaps
and imported III Ola pounds of like quality.
fother soaps we exported u, 279, 255 pounds,
worth $618, 233, from twentyfour American
ports to forty-three foreign countries, against
a total Importation of 2,S39,67S pounds,
worth $175,439 before paying duties. The
revenue collected on soap was not very large
but it sufficed to pay the salary of the Presi-
dent and majority of the cabinet. In toilet
soaps our eX port was one-fourth of our i'm
port; in other soaps four times our import.
But both our export and import were in
significant compared with our total do
nestle production and consumption. New
York city alone manufactured and ex-
ported twice as much soap in value as was
imported for the whole country. Under
these circumstances the duty on soap is no
nearer to being tax than the duty on wheat
rye, or corn. Hence, MIR. Fi$hback's notion
that the tariff is a tax breaks down as to
soap So far as soap is brought into the
country at all and sold under the duty, the
duty as tax is divided between the French
savonier who consents to bear portion of it
and the American fop or belle who pays
sixty cents for Partisan soap when he could
buy the same in New York for thirty-fiye
cents, on the theory that Freedmen make
better soap when employed by Lubin, in
Paris, than when employed by Phalon or
Colgate in New York. So our friend Fish
back, who mounts his hobby, supposing that
he is going to champion the cause OF the
poor workingman, simply exhibits himself
as the champion of that class of exquisite
snobs who prefer to nay sixty cents for a
cake of soap made in Paris than thirty cents
for the same article even if it were made by
the same workmen and firm in New York
The idea that the duty on tan bark, on the
bark of oak trees, can be a tax on any other
than the foreigner who seeks to import them
could not be exceeded in its absudity by a
court jester. Tan bark covers nearly every
square acre of wild lands in the United
States which is not either pine or prairie 1t
produces ITSELF And yet here is a sensible
country lawyer talking about the duty on its
importation being tax on its consumption:
1t is not remarkable that starting on such a
basis he should discover the workngmen of
America are to find relief from the burdens
nj Il