St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-12
THE TARIFF BILL.
Morrison Presents the Majority
Report, Giving Details of
the Bill.
A Reduction of Duties Recommended
Equal to 20 Per Centum, with
Certain Necessaries Free.
The Minority Report Also Presented, Contend
ing There Should be No Change.


submitted to the house to-day. The division
of the committee was upon strict party lines.
Morrison was asked when he proposed to call
the bill up for action He said he did not
know. Other members expressed the opin-
ion that it would come up next week. The
majority report is as follows
The committee on ways and means, to
which was referred SO much of the presi-
dents message and accompanying docu-
ments, as relates to the revenue, respectfully
reports, that in said message and accom-
panying documents, the president has
deemed it his duty to give to congress ln1or-
nation as follows: To make start in the
proposed reduction of revenue, from i'm
ports, the tariff commission had been crea-
ted. In good faith it undertook the work
In its report to congress- it saidE
Early in its deliberations the commission
became convinced that a substantial re-
duction in the tariff duties was demanded,
not by mere indiscriminaJe popular clamor,
but by the best conservative opinion of the
country. Such reduction, the existing tariff
commissioner regards not only as due
recognition of public sentiment and a meas
ure of Justice to the consumers, but one con-
ducive to the general industrial prosperity
and which though it may be temporarily in
con venient, will be ultimately beneficial to
the special interests affected by such reduc
ton. Entertaining these views the com
mission has sought to present scheme of
tariff duties, in which a substantial reduc-
ton should be the distinguishing feature.
The average reduction in rates, including
that from an enlargement of the free list and
the abolition of duties on charges and COM
missions, at which the commissioner has ar
rived, is not less on the average than 20 per
cent and 1t is the opinion OF the commits
sion that the reduction will reach
% per cent. The chairman OF the senate
committee on finance, in explanation OF the
bill before the senate last year, which after
various amendments became a law, estimat-
ed at S45, 900, 600 the reduction of revenue
which would follow the changes in the tariff
proposed thereby. These calculations have
not been verified. So the question still
presses, what legislation is necessary to
relieve the people OF unnecessary tariffs!
Your committee find, that in the first six
months, ending December 81, 1888, under
the act of March 3, 1888, dutiable merchan-
disc was imported into the United States,
valued at 1926, 1875, 100, on which duties were
paid, amounting to 500, 514, 1876, being 1901
per cent. on the value thereof. In the
corresponding six months of the year 1882,
1nder the oldglaw the value of dutiable i'm
ports amounted to $3.50, ,272, and
the duty paid was $111, 1886, 507, or AZ 65-100
per cent. on the value. 1t thus appears that
the average cost of importing goods valued
at 500 was only LIZA per cent. less under
the new than under the old law. This eXhib-
its the reduction in the rates made by the act
of March 3, 1888, amounting to LA per
cent. of the duty, and is subject to an i'm
portant modification, resulting from the
changes in value and other conditions, some
of which increase and others reduce the com
parative ad valorem rates. The nominal re-
duction made by the proposed bill is 20 per
cent, or one-fifth of the present rates, with
the Morrill, tariff limitations in the bill and
the liquor and silk schedules omitted, as they
are. The actual reduction on the basis of
last years imports will not exceed 1874 per
cent. on the whole importation of dutiable
goods. To get, then, the average reduction
made in the tariff commission blu of the act
of March 3, 1888, and that to be made by the
proposed bill do not equal the reduction at
which the commission aimed. Wood, sawed
lumber, coal and salt are of such universal
use among, and so necessary to all people,
that in view of the present abundant treasury
receipts it is not deemed advisable longer to
obtain a revenue from a tax on these articles.
The decrease in the revenue, as shown by the
receipts under the new law, other than that
resulting from nominal reduction of IA
per cent, results from the falling off to the
value of nearly $25, 900, 900 of imports in the
first half year under the new law, as com
pared with the first half of the previous year
under the old law The reduction of revenue
receipts under the bill reported, is
estimated at S31, O0O 600, on the basis of last
years imports. To that extent the bill will
relieve the people of unnecessary taxes. To
that extent the taxes will be reduced directly,
as a measure of justice to consumers, and
indirectly, in largely increased proportions.
From the statement made by the bureau of
statistics, a copy which is appended to this
report, it appears the duties or tariff taxes
were decreased on some and increased on
other articles of imported goods under the
act of March last. While this is true, there
has been no increase in the rates of wages in
any, buta reduction of wages in most indus
tries, as well as in those whose competing
products received more, as in those that
obtained less protection under the act of
March last
1.-THE condition of the manufacturing in
dustries is not satisfactory. In common
with other industries, they only recovered
late in 1879, from the reverses on the par
tial paralysis of five years duration. In less
than three years after this recovery, such
peared, that in one of the largest, best pay
ing, and best paid industries, iron and
steele, eliminated four months stop
pages and idleness fell upon the workers de-
pendent upon it, not upon the capital invest
ed in it. In the annual report of the Amer
lean iron and steele associations for the year
1882 made on May 1, 1888, by James NJ.
Swank, secretary of the association, he says,
at the beginning of June nearly
all the mills referred to, the rolling
mills in Pittsburg and the west, were closed
by general strike, which continued until
last September, when work was resumed
upon the scale of wages which previously
prevailed. During the strike of four months,
prices of rolled iron did not advance, not
withstanding the stoppage of so many mills,
fact which clearly demonstrated, that the
capacity to produce this form of iron, had
again, as in the panic years, exceeded the
demand. At the same time it must be
frankly admitted, our rolling mill capacity
has for some time been in the advance of
the consumptive wants of the country and
that a check to the overproduc-
ton of rolled iron, which was
afforded by the strike Of 1882, was in no
sense calamity to the manufacturers. 1t is
believed the condition of the iron and steel
industries is not unlike, and differs only in
degree from the iron and steel, and that the
calamity of frequent recurring industrial
embarrassment and enforced idleness, is in
separable from the enormities of our pro-
tective system. The calamities of such
system always fall upon the laboring poor.
Your committee, therefore, report a bill to
reduce the import duties and war tariff taxes,
with recommendation that it be passed as
measure of partial relief to the people from
unnecessary taxes, as measure of justice to
the consumers and conducive to the general
induCtria1 ,orocDaritu