The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-12-18
THE TREASURY
First Annual Report Of Secretary
Manning.
Receipts and Bzpenditures--Silver
and Tariff Questions.

matter, ana Is accompanied by u Speclal IT,
port of fifty-six pages on the collection, Of
customs duties.
The ordinary revenues of the government
for the fiscal year 1885 were $323, G90, zoo, and
the ordinary expenditures Including sinking
fund, S45, 604, 035) were S305, S30,9iO, leaving
surplus of Sl1,Sjg, 1}5. AS compared with
the preceding year there was decrease of
S24, S29, 163 i'll revenue and an increase of
Sl6,lOO,G9O in expenditures.
The estimated revenues of the year 1856 are
1915, 1000, 900, and the estimated expenditures,
including sinking fund $3.50, 80, 900, For the
year 1877, however, the secretary estimates
that there will be deficit of $2i,jS9, 352, the
revenue remaining at S3l5,OOO,0OO and the
expenditures reaching S339, 5S911? OF tins
estimated increase of S49,O 900 in eXpcndl-
lures, Sl9,0O00OO is for pensions, Sl3,OOO,OOO
for the navy, and 81 100000 for iortliicatlonS
The interest bearing debt has been reduced
during the fiscal year Sl0,3G9, 80 and now
stands at 81 ,260, rs 1872, including the Pacific
Railroad bonds (SGi G23,5l2). The balance i'll
the treasury OF assets over liabilities has been
increased Sos, 053 1O2 since March !, lSSj, of
which S36,0O0,0O0 is silver COIN $lG,OO0,0O0
gold CON- and S9,0O0.000 legal tender notes.
Eighteen pages of the secretary's report are
given to a theoretical and historical discus
sion of the silver question The secretary
argues that the continued coinage of silver
dollar by arbitrary purchases of bullion
withsut reference to the public demand for
United States a silver monometallic natioA,
and put us out of harmony with the CONNER
cial world, and tend to defeat international
b-metalism. He opposes the project for
making heavier dollar, since that would also
operate against international bl-metallsm by
carrying us further away from the European
ratio, and because the adoption of new
ratio would involve the coming of more dol
lars, whereas we have more than enough al
ready. Stoppage of the coinage, in the sec
1S hn
remedy for the evils existing and threatened.
On the subject of reform i'll taxation the
secretary says:
Beside the reforms which are desirable for
the effective administration of any system of
taxation levied through imported merchan-
disc, and are Indispensable for the admins
tration of custom laws, which, like our own,
are a chaos rather than a system, | venture
to hope that i'll due season it will be the pleas
ure of Congress to consider some other re-
forms, upon which, as is requisite, all parties
may agree and that are of a different scope.
Like our currency laws, our tariff laws are
legacy of war, If exigencies excuse their
origin, their defects are unnecessary after
twenty years of peace. They have been re-
tanned without sitting and discrimination, al
though enacted without legislative debate, crit
icism or examination. a horizontal reduction
of ten per cent. was made i'll 1872, but was
repealed in 1910 and rejected in 1881 They
require at our custom houses the employment
OF force sufficient to examine, appraiSe, and
levy duties upon more than !, lS2 different ar
ticles. Many rates of duty begun in war
have been increased since, although the late
tariff commission declared them injurious to
the interests supposed to be benefited, and
said that reduction would be conducive to
the general prosperity. They have been re-
tained although the long era of falling prices,
in the case of specific duties, has operated a
large increase of rates They have been re
tanned at AN average al valorem rate for the
last year of over forty-sx per cent, which is
but two and n half per cent. less than the
highest rate of the war period, and is nearly
four per cent. more thau the rate before the
latest revision. The highest endurable rates
of duty, which were adopted 1921 to offset
internal taxes upon almost every taxable arti-
Gle, have i'll most cases been retained now
from fourteen to twenty years after such in
ternal tax has been removed. They have
been retained while purely revenue duties
upon articles not competing with anything
produced in the thiItY-eight States have been
discarded. They have been retained upon
articles used as materials for our own manu-
features lin 1854 adding $3O,0OO,0O0 to their
cost which, if exported, compete in other
countries against similar manufactures from
untaxed materials. Some rates have been re-
tanned after running the industries they We're
meant to advantage. Other rates have been
retained after affecting higher price for n
domestic product at home than it was sold
abroad for The general high level of rates
has been retained ON the theory of counter
Nallng lower wages abroad, when, in fact.
the higher wages of American labor are at
once the secret and the security of our ca
paclty to distance all competition from pau
per labor in any market. All changes have
left unchanged, or changed for the worse by
new schemes of classification and otherwise,
a complicated, cumbrous intricate group of
laws which are not capable of being admins
tered with impartiality to all our merchants
As nothing in the ordinary course Of bust
ness is imported unless the price here of the
domestic, as well as the imported. artCle~is
higher by the amount of the duty and the
cost of sea-transit than the price abroad the
preference of the taxpayer for duties upon
articles not produced in the United States is
justified by the fact that such duties cost him
no more than the treasury of his country
gets. As for duties affecting articles that are
also produced in the United States, the first
to be safely discarded are those, upon mate
rlalS used by our own manufactures, which
now subject them to a hopeless competition at
home and abroad, with the manufacturing
nations, none Of which taxes raw materials
1t is not to be doubted that in any reform
which shall finally receive the approval of the
two houses of Congress, they will maturcly
consider and fayorably regard the interests
which can only gradually and carefully be
adjusted, without loss, to changes in the leg.
islativc conditions for their advancing pros
perity. With this view, l have invited in
some 1000 circular letters to our manufac.
turcrs and merchants, their enlightened co
policy, and the replies received will hercaf.
ter be submitted to the consideration of Con
gress.
LIFE-SAvING SERVICE.
The usual beneficent results have attended
the operations of this service during the year
The number Of stations in commission at the
close of the year was 203. The number OF
disasters TO documented vessels reported by
the district officers to have occurred within
their field of action is $50. The number Of
persons on board these vessels was 22OG
of whom 2,l96 were saved and ten lost
The value of the property involved is
estimated at $4,G0f,455, of which 81, 3j9. 76C
was saved and 81 Psi ,G95 lost The number
of vessels totally lost was fifty-six There
were beside ll5 disasters TO smaller craft
such as sailboats, rowboats, etc, on which
We're 233 persons, 232 of whom were saved
and one lost. The value of property involved
in these minor disasters was 500 925, of which
S26, SOB was saved and 50, lO2 lost.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
During the last year work has been in
rroufpsS 11npr,