New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-03-05
TILE NEK TARIFF ACT.


The great work of the XLVIlth Congress
has been the revision and reduction of the
tariff aud the large reduction of internal
taxes. Faulty in many things, this Congress
has grandly indicated at last the wisdom,
and. it might almost be said, the absolute ne
cessity of one of the most important acts
passed at its first session. When the Tariff
Commission bill was passed opponents of the
Republican party declared that 1t was cheat,
intended to prevent any revision OF reduction
of the tariff. Many thousand voters, distrust-
ing the sincerity OF the STEP voted against the
party last fall for that reason. But Congress
has now passed greatly improved Tariff bill
at short sessoD-a thing deemed impossible
10y very many; has adopted to a very great
extent the recommendations OF the Commission
which it had creaied, and has clearly demon
strated, in the course of this great work, that
| its performance, in the teeth of unpatrionc
| and INSCRIPTIONS Democratic opposition, would
| have been utterly impossible had not the in
| VestigatiOns of the Commission first given def
inltencss and guidance to the movement and
brought to aid it powerful concentration of
public opinion.
From the outset, the bill of the Commission
has been stronger out OF Congress and even
in Congress than any other which it was pos
sible to frame. 1t contained numerous errors,
due to lack of time for preparation, which
the Commissioners Themselves aided the two
houses of Congress to correct. A large pro-
| portion of the changes that have been made
| in the form of enumerations or in rates have
| been corrections OF this nature. But there are
very few members of either house, we suspect,
who are aware how large part OF the
| bill that has been passed was in every let
ter the work of the Commission. There has
been 80 much conflict of opinion about few
important departures from its plan that the
substantial identity of the great part of the
bill now passed with the one reported by the
Commission has been generally lost sight Of
| For puolic information, a careful examination
has been deemed worth while.
| The first and greatest merit of the Tariff
| Commissions bill was judged TO be its simpli-
fcation of the Tariff its removal of those am
biguities which had caused countless vexatious
and costly disputes. Now the bill that has
been passed embraces 63l distinct articles or
classifcatlons, not including the free list. OF
these 524 have been taken, word for word,
from the bill reported by the Commission And
much more than half OF the remainder are
mere auOlClOub Oh LTlllnB dIticIc5 NY hainc
which the Commission for brevity's sake had
! judged it sufficient to include under general
clauses, OF whichN had been inadvertently
overlooked. In order to render vexatious I'M
certainty still less probable, Congress has
chosen to insert the names specifically with the
appropriate duty. In another and smaller
class of cases, however Congress preferred TO
retain the present classfcatons, holding
that legal decisions had now sufficiently re-
moved the danger of ambiguity. In a third
and still smaller class OF cases. The object Of
the majority was to secure a greater or less
reduction of duty than had been recon-
meDded. and these, probably less than % in
number, were mainly in the cotton, woollen
goods, or iron and steel schedules. over which
there has been so much struggle.
Next as to rates. in about two thirds of the
631 specifications, namely, in 400 in ALL the act
passed retains precisely the rate proposed by