Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-11-17

and IL consequently costs these pro-
ducers an extraordinary proportion OF
their products, and an extraordinary ex-
penditure OF their labor TO pay these taxes
In any given sums of standard money.
To pay the customs tax OF Sl95, 100000
would now require, at farmers
prices, about 3lOOOo,0 900 bushels OF
wheat, or G50,000,000 bushels OF
corn, or 10000 bales OF cotton,
ard so on; whereas, II farm produce were
at normal valuations, the same amount
OF taxes would be paid by 100000, 900
bushels of wheat, or $4,000 900 bushels
OF corn, or 397, 900 bales OF cotton. These
differences Of 05,000,00 bushels of
wheat, or 1875 200, 900 bushels Of corn, or
3lS, 900 bales OF cotton represent the sill
yer tribute to India In part and in part
the universal depression caused In oil the
Western world by the operation OF the
single gold standard.
But the point is this: the labor and pro-
auctions Of the agricultural classes are
toled at present Valuations for the trib-
ute to artisan production, amo 1nting to
Sl95, 900 600 year in percentage, which,
at normal prices, would pay tribute OF
S265, 900, 900.
without going into the large side is.
sues suggested by these startling con-
trasts, we submit that they would indi-
cate TO any honest and capable states
man the policy OF adjusting taxation to
the sadly reduced resources Of the prin-
cipal tax payers. AS the labor and pro-
auctions of the latter have lost so large
a proportion of their ordinary money
value it is manlfestly not only the plain.
est imperative policy, but also the most
solemn duty TO humanity to lower the
axed tax charges thereupon, and to ac-
commodato the burden TO the capacity of
the burden-bearer That is to say, econ
omy and retrenchment in expenditure
and taxation should be righteously and
rigidly accommodated to the straitened
condition of the production which sup
ports them. The decline in produce or
the advance in our gold standard of
money, unfortunately added nothing TO
the producing capacity OF an acre of land,
or OF farmers strength and skill and
endurance.
But see where the supreme iufamy Of IL
comes in. More than half that tax OF
Sl94, 1000, 900 goes into what we now call
the "surplus revenue" as more than
500 coo, coo are being collected from the
tariff for which there is no pub
lie use whatever, even by the
aid OF extravagant public @Xpendi.
ture. 1t lies in the treasury idle,
useless, costly, exbaustlng the wits of the
administrative officials, and private
economists as vel, for means aud devices
TO dispose Of 1t, and It is tuken stupidity
out of trade and industrial channels
wnen not at all needed, thus embarrass
ing and still more depressing the pro.
ducing resources which are taxed to keel
II up.
This is the only nation in the worlt
where craftsmanship is struggling with
the problem of how to relieve the public
exchequer of an immense burden o.
surplus tax revenues for which no public
use can be found; and this enormous
surplus of revenue is drawn from the ma
toms producing forces, at the most mop
perfume juncture possible, when price
relations render them 40 per cent. more
costly and burdensome than they would
be under natural conditions.