Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-10-05
MINORITY REPORT.
The Senate Bill Condemned and the
 Mills Hill Recommended.

Mills Bill Recommended.
 The minority at the outset complain that none of them were consulted or informed about the provisions of the substitute re- ported by the Republican majority until it was reported to the full committee on the 18th of last month, and of the hearings be fore the subcommittee since last May, they assert that it is safe to say all the interests benefited by high protective tariff have been fully heard and have had much inf1u- ence in shaping the substitute, while the great body of the people, the taxpayers, and victims of this policy, have not appeared and have not yet been heard. Criticising the substi- tute the minority say the essential difference between the house bill and the senate substi- ute is apparent and radical at the outset in the matter of revenue. The one is framed in the interest of the public treasury; the other in the interest of private pockets The one is framed ill the interest of the whole people, the other in the interest of 3O0,O00 manufac- turers The one is designed to reduce both government revenue and taxation, the taxa tion especially which bears heaviest on the necessaries of life; the other is intended to raise public revenue, indeed, but to maintain private revenues by increasing and retaining taxation on all the necessaries of life. Prac- tically, the substitute offers to the people free whisky and free tobacco, leaving all the ex- pensive machinery for the collection of the revenue and enforcement of the law ill full force while it increases taxation upon the actual and indispensable neceSsaries of life, and this, too when there Is large surplus in the treasury, and under existing laws that surplus is being increased at the rate of over SlO5, ,OOO, GOO per month, thus withdrawing and withholding from the channels of trade, commerce and business of the country money ,b, to ,l tions
 The substitute, the minority say, not only retains a duty on raw wool, but increases the duty from 10 to II cents a pound on clothing and combing wool, and the exist ing duty is retained on carpet wools, which all parties agree ar~ not produced ill this country, and the changes made in the manu- | factures of wool increases the taxation, and | to that extent increases the cost of the manufactured article and especially the 1 cheaper grades-the clothing of the poor | It the cotton schedule, they say, the great process of ''levelng up" is called into reouisi- | tion By changes in classification and by new subdivisions still further complicating the administration, and by changes ill rates | in effect principally increasing taxes, most 1 glaring inconsistencies and dScriminatians are perpetrated in this so-called revision. Commenting on the connection between the tariff and trusts, the minority say;: ''The present tariff is the nursing mother of trusts It is the wall behind which these combinations are formed, by which the people are plundered. Tariffs keep out the foreign competition and the combination | suppresses the domestic and the whole people are at their mercy and must pay whatever is demanded. Language is inadequate to describe the inequity of these corporations against the rights of the people or to depict their disastrous effects upon the general vel fare- As the tariffs, which render trusts possible, are established and maintained at the special instance of those who form them, it would seem but simp.s justice as well as good policy to tear down as much as possible of the cover, and refuse to longer aid them in wrong doing. They are not private affairs" as has been asserted, but public evils of the gravest character, affecting the price of every article which contributes to fse comfort and support of the people. The lsrovsionS of the substitute favor tksm greatly, and will serve to encourage their formation in still other branches of manvsac ture. Many of those belonging to trusts appeared before the finance commit>ee
 clamorous for such legislation would Eyo
 mote their interests. They are all opposed to the house bill, which should command
 it to all who condemn clique methods
 Ao 40 oeAO oLouSA Vo poiHliO thoSS "uo most ted-manufacturerS-t apEsal
 before our committee and suggest the legisla
 tion they wish, but surely we should uot
 listen to the trusts and aid them to rob u.
 with both hands,
 The absurd accusation that the Mills bil
 means free trade" ''the ruin of industry.
 and the degradation of American labor,
 the minority say is as false as misleading
 How the flow of surplus money into tn,
 treasury can be stopped without reducin,
 the taxes which produce it no man can de
 wise, how these taxes can be reduced with
 sut taking off from the top toward the bot tom no imagination can conceive There
 fore, it would seem, no man can propose t cut off excessive taxation without subjectin, ] himself to the charge of free trade" be
 cause any reduction whatever ''looks towar : ksee trade" True, government revenue Right be reduced by making duties so hig