The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-12
THE MORRISON TARIFF BILL.
The Author Of the Measureand Mr.. HeW-
lit Argue at Length in Its Support.
The Republican Minority EndeavOrs to Show
( that the Bill Is an Assault on the Agri-
cultural Interests Of the Country.

W AShtHuIONt <PAiA -
and Mr.. Hewitt. of the committee on ways and
means, have completed the report OF the majority
of that committee to accompany the tarih bill,
which will ba reported to the House tomorrow.
The report reads as follows:
1.-THE rate of duty or tax on imported goods
subject to duty Is as low as 3 on some and higher
than 200 per cent. on others. The average rate
for the fiscal year 1885, a little exceeded AZ per
cent, or SAT of tax on 500 worth of imported
goods. This is the highest rate paid in any year
since 1865, and above the average rate of the
Tar period from 1862 to 1868"
After quotations from the messages of Presi-
dents Arthur and Cleveland, setting forth the
necessity of tariff revision, the report continues:
''The Treasury receipts for the fiscal year 1885
were 1922, 600, 708. 38. The increased receipts
from customs and internal taxes, the principal
sources of revenue, for the months OF the fiscal
year of 1886 already past, over the receipts of the
same months of last year, Justify the estimate
that the receipts for the present fiscal year will
not exceed $685., 900. 900; nor may our annual
Treasury receipts be expected again to fall below
that sum without reduced taxation, inasmuch
rs these receipts result chiefly from the taxes on
articles Of necessity and comfort, to be consumed
An continually-inereasing quantities with our
ever growing population. The expenditures for
the fiscal year 1885. including pensions and the
legal requirements of the public debt, were
$305, 800, go 81 Neither the actual needs of an
economical administration of the government
nor the patriotic expectations of the people justi-
fly any increases OF this enormous annual sur
plus to exceed $50, 900, 900. The reductions to
result from the proposed bill are within this es-
timated surplus. and a little exceed $24, 000, 900,
on the basis of last years importations."
Reference is made to Secretary Manning's
views, as expressed in his first annual report,
touching the Ill effects of the maintenance of
war duties; pointing out inequalities in the pres
ent law, and favoring the admission, free of
duty, of raw materials, of which the report
says:
"These views of Secretary Manning as to the
existing condition of the customs service and tar
if taxation are not partisan. but are in accord
with the views pressed on Congress by his pre-
decessors, Secretaries Folger and McCulloch. 1t
is the purpose of the bill reported to correct
some of the classifcations, rid the customs laws
of the complications of which the Secretary com
plains, and so change these laws for the better
that they will be capable of being administered
with impartiality to all our merchants. The du-
ties intended to be removed by the bill are chief
ly those which tax articles used by our own
manufacturers. which now subject them to a
hopeless competition at home and abroad, with
the manufacturing nations, none of which taxes
such materials, that our own manufactur-
ers may successfully comepete, both at
home and . abroad. with manufacturing
nations which do not tax such materials, thus
securing markets for the products of hands now
idle for want of work to do. Some of the mate
rails upon which great industries are built
such as wood, salt, hemp and wool-are placed
on the free list. In the past twenty years we
have obtained from tax on imported wood an
amount estimated at less that 500, 600, 900,
TO encourage telling our trees and de-
6troying our forests. In a much shorter
Ave million acres of lands in bounties to encour-
age the planting of other trees. The tax on
imported salt is RENTED to those who catch and
trade in fish, and to those who pack meats
&&S the foreign markets. 1t is believed this
tax should be RENTED to all. After nearly a
century. with only an interval, hemp has been
protected, and yet its production has decreased
because its production under protection was nm
profitable, while the consumption of articles
manufactured from this and kindred fbres has
enormously increased. until now the annual tax
on imported hemp, MANILA and similar hbres is
several times greater than the annual value of
all the hemp raised in the United States.
when, at the beginning, a revenue was found
necessary to our national existence, wool. with
everything imported. was taxed. From then
until now, some qualities of wool have paid some
rate of duty. For many years past the rate on
imported wool has beer more than double that
imposed on other products of the pasture, field
and farm. These other lower tax-protected
products have not run or kept in advance of the
volume of the wondrous growth of our population.
Wool. protected double as much, has fallen
further behind. Wool finds its market at home
and It's price is increased by tax, part Of the bur
den of which must be borne by the grower of
other farm products, whose surplus in foreign
markets fixes his price at home, and to the in
crease of which his wool growing neighbor con-
tributes nothing. The price of wool has been
downward for many years, and it declined when
the tax was highest and protection greatest.
From the statements Of the Ohio and
other wool growers associations, it ap-
pears that the market price for wool
- 49, -kA ~ 49, Ak 49,
ton; that with the existing protective rates of
10 cents on the pound. the price is still 10 cents
below the price at which it can be proftably
grown in the great woolgrowing States of Ohio
and Pennsylvania. 1t appears, therefore, that
the attempt to make wool-erowing profitable by
the use of the taxing power has not been sue
c~essful. while the tax has been a great national
hindrance to the wooden manufacturing indus
try, as we'll as a most grievous burden upon all
buyers of wooden clothing. 1t has been already
shown by statements of wool growers that the
wool duty imposed by General Garfeld's associ-
ates did not promote the growth of sheep hus
bandry. For the last year this duty on import
ed wool was So, l64, 295. The specific duty i'm
with the So, l64. 295. equivalent duty. is to be re-
moved, aud aduty of 35 DER centum advalorem
on woolen goods as a protection to the
manufacturers against foreign compe-
tition, remains, and will yield the needed
revenue. In some of the schedules wherein
rates are proposed to be redtceG, especially
WOODEN and fas, hemp, jute or linens, the in
dustries are left with substantially the same. if
not greater, advantages than under existing
laws.
.Other articles, the rates of which are to be
reduced, as cotton yarns. threads and coarser
cotton cloths, and sugar, are now dutiable at un-
necessarily and unreasonably high rates. These
will find compensation in the burdens of taxa
ton sought to be removed for reductions far
greater than any proposed by the bill. We get
from duties on cotton goods $40, 600, 600. The
rates on goods from which we collet So, 100. 900
of this amount are slightly reduced, while the
are unchanged. Sugar, with the present low
pice, Is left at the high. but revenue rate, equiv
alent to GO per centum. At the present higher
rate we collect on sugar more than one
fourth Of all revenue derived from customs.
With the still existing high, if not unwarrant-
able scale of current ordinary expenditures, and
the one-half of the money obligations of the late
civil war yet to be paid. a high rate of taxation