The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1888-10-11
TALKING OF THE TARII,F.
THE SENATE MAJORITY RE-
PORT ON OUR REVENUES.
Alleged Shortcomings of the Mills Bill
Industries Which 1t Is Claimed
Tt Would Tnjure.

Mr.. Beck's views were presented to the
Senate and ordered printed:
The majority declares that the demand
for careful and thorough revision of our
revenue laws is imperative.
Il. To reduce the national revenues, which
are now excessive.
~. To protect honest importers and do
nestle producers from the disastrous conse-
quences resulting from fraudulent underval-
uation of imported merchandise on which
ad valorem rates are levied
70. To remedy the defects, anomalies,
and incongruities which have been from
time to time discovered in the tariff schedules
or which have been created by erroneous de-
cisions of the treasury department..
A. To secure the proper read justment
and equalization of tariff rates rendered
necessary by modified business conditions,
improvements in methods of production,
radical changes in prices, or by new elements
OF sources of competition
70. To give relief and protection to many
industries which are now suffering on &C
count of the inadequate rates levied on COM
peting products.
The Surplus.
The public demand for reduction Of
revenue is more urgent on account of the
lnexcusable retention in the national
treasury OF on deposits in national banks of
vast sums of money in excess of the amount
required to pay the current demands upon
the treasury and to meet the maturing obli-
cations OF the government. This sum,
with the additions which will accrue within
the next four months and before any legisla-
tive action reducing the revenues can be eff
tectlve, will be sufficient to pay in full the
outstanding Al per cent bonds due in 1891
1921 100000
This accumulation could and should
have been proftably avoided and the posi-
bility of business disaster averted by the
prompt return of the money collected
from the people to the channels of trade
through the purchase of United States
bonds. that could at all times have been OBJ
tanned for prices which to the government
would have been equal to an investment of
otherwise Improbable funds at rate of in
terest of not less than per cent per annum
- 1t has been the evident purpose of those
who have controlled the policy of the party
in power to delay action, to magnify causes
for uneasiness, and to multiply and intensi-
fy evils until the people of the country
should imperatively demand relief, and
then to assume that the evils and embarrass-
ments from which we are suffering are the
necessary incidents of the protective system,
and that relief can only be found in the
emasculation and destruction of that system
The known attachment of the great mass of
the wage-earners of the country to a system
which has been productive to them of I'M
exampled prosperity prevented the adop-
ton Of policy of open attack and made it
necessary that some plausible reason should
be found for the stealthy accomplishment Of
their destructive designs.
Inadequacy of the Mills Bill.
The majority expresses its conviction of
the inadequacy Of the House bill as RENE
dial measure for these reasons:
81. That it would probably increase in
stead of reduce the revenue
20. That it provides no remedy for under
valuations, but on the contrary invites and
gives immunity to fraud by constituting ad
valorem for specific duties; and,
go That it does not remedy any of the in
CAPABILITIES or anomalies, or cure any of the
defects of the existing law"
The report estimates that the changes
made in the cotton and wooden schedules by
the Mills bill would give foreign manufac-
turers quarter of the market now held by
American manufacturers, and that the adj
ditional duty would reach $50, 600, 900. The
proposed substitution of ad valorem for
specific duties, it says, could have no other
result than to change rates now protective
for others which would not protect. The
use of ad valorem duties is condemned be-
cause of it's uncertain and unsatisfactory
character, because of the chances for fraud
through undervaluations, and because
under it the foreign manufacturer practi-
cally fixes the duty he is willing to pay.
How Importations Will Be Increased.
AS an illustration of the effect of the
House bill to increase importations the ma
jority cites the application of ad valorem
rates to fine cotton cloths, and says:
1.-THE uniform rate Of 40 per centum pro-
posed bears very unevenly upon the various
grades of goods. 1t would be, if collected
upon an honest valuation, protective upon
the coarser and commoner kinds, which are
largely consumed by all classes of our people,
but it would encourage the Importation
without restra:lt of those fine fabrics which
may bo properly designated as luxuries."
%N.| The Free List.
The free-trade tendencies of the House
bill, the majority says, are clearly brought
out in the free list. OF the 104 items from
which the duties are removed, nearly one
half--forty- eight-are manufactured arti-
cles, sixteen agricultural products, eleven
articles which are now free of duty or with
out commercial Importance, and twenty -one
arc articles which now pay small revenue
duty; but which are of such character
that removal of duties is unobjectionable
The report then refers to a list of fifty arti-
c4es on the free list in the House bill, which
it says are now furnished to the home trade
by domestic producers whose business would
be ruined unless protected by tariff. The
report estimates that these producers en-
ploy 300, 900 workmen and a combined CAPT
tai of $500, 900.
Inequalities of the House Measure.
The majority says that many OF the
articles named in the list seem to have been
taken indiscrininately from the present
dutiable list, and there is no reason for the
removal of duties upon them which would
not apply with equal force to hundreds OF
other manufactures which are now dutiable.
1t declares that in many cases where the
manufactured article is placed on the free
list duty is retained on the materials from
which it is manufactured, and that this dis
elimination would act as prohibition upon
production in this country, and cites many
provisions Of the House measure to sub
stantiate the assertion In several cases
articles are free under one description and
dutiable under another. In great number