The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-10-11
MAJORITY
The Majority Report of the
Senate Finance Committee
on the Tariff.
Comparison Instituted Between
the Republican Measure and
the Mills Bill.

NAShlcN1ON, OOLOUOI iO-udY lue
majority and minority reports on the
tariff bill were presented in the senate.
Both are very long and explicit aud are
intended for distribution as campaign
documents. The majority report, repre-
senting the views of the republican mem
bers of the committe on finance, fills
eighty-nine closely printed pages, of
which twenty-five are tabular. There are
detailed comparisons between the features
of the Mills bill, and also, those of the
present tariff and the bill, upon which
this is report, making all of the essen
tial points comprehensive to the average
reader.
The report opens with the statement
that the demand for careful and thor
ough revision of our revenue laws is i'm
perative.
THIS REVISION
is necessary to reduce the national
revenues, which are now excessive; to
remedy defects, anomalies and incon-
gruities, which have been, from time to
time discovered in the schedules, or which
have been created by erroneous de-
oisions of the treasury depart
ment; to secure proper readjustment
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 competition, and to
give relief and protection to many indus
tries which are now suffering on account
of inadequate rates levied on com petiting
products.
The public demand for a reaction of
revenue,
THE MAJORITY SAY,
is more urgent on account of the inexcus
able retention in the national treasury
or ON deposit in the national banks of
vast sums of money in excess of the a.
mount required to pay the current de-
,mands upon the treasury, and to matur-
ing obligations of the government.
This sum, with additions which will ac-
crue within the next four months, and be-
fore any legistive action redecing the rev.
enue can be effective, it decrares will be
sufficient to pay in full the outstanding
four and Il half per cent bonds due in 1891
-$221, 100000.
This accumulation, it insists, could and
should have been proftably avoided and
the possibility of business disaster averted
by prompt distribution 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 obtained
for prices which, to the government, |
would have been of equal investment of
otherwise profitable funds at rate of in
terest of not less than 2 per cent per an
nun. ..
The majority expresses its conviction
of the inadequacy of the house bill as |
remedial measure forthe reasons that it
would probably increase instead of reduc-
ing the revenue; that it provides no rem
edy for undervaluations, but on the con-
trary invites and gives immunity to fraud
by substituting ad valorem for specific
duties and that it does not remedy any of
the Inequalities or anomalies, or cure tny
of the defects of the existing law.
If foreign manufacturers, the majority |
says, should through the changes made in
THE COTTON AND wooLEN SCHEDULES
secure a quarter of the market now held
by American manufacturers and this, 1t
thinks, very conservative estimate-the
additional duty would reach at least sixty
millions. An expansion of imports, it
declares, would also follow a reduction of
rates on China, porcelain, common window
glass, manufactures of iron and steel, flax,
jute, hemp and many minor manufactures,
with greatly augmented revenues.
1t declares that the house bill perpet-
yates the existing infrmities and creates |
by its obscurities and faulty construction,
doubts and antiquities which must
multiply indefinitely the present confu-
sion.
The majority says:
The free trade tendency partly con-
cealed in these propositions to cripple or
destroy numerous industries are clearly
brought into view by an examination of
articles which the bill proposes
to place upon the free list of
1SO items from which duties
are removed, nearly one-half, forty eight
in number, are manufactured articles,
sixteen are agricultural products, eleven
are articles which are now free of duty, or