Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-10-26
THE TARIFF.
MIR. Battell's Letter Continued.


''Now as to the American surplus reye-
nue., which the fair traders wave as a
huge flag in our face. The recent mes
sage of President Cleveland has been ex-
pected for years, because the lessening
of taxation to diminish the surplus was
the main plank of the Democratic plat
form when he was elected. There is now
the wonderful surplus of twenty-five
millions sterling, all, except the excise,
got from taxes on foreign goods. Rec
ollect that Americans are doubly taxed,
first for the support of their own State,
and secondly for the maintenance of the
Union-together, fS los. per head. The
President naturally objects to the treas
ury of the United States being hoard
ing place for money needlessly with
drawn from trade and the peoples use.
To make this clear let me say few ele-
mentary truths about taxation. Taxes
are tribute paid to State or govern
ment for protecting all of us against vio-
lence, rapine and other forms of crime.
Taxation can never be a productive force !;
on the contrary, taxes form deduction
from the strength of labor and the fertili-
ty of the soil. If this be true, the more
you tax a people the more you decrease
the common wealth of the nation. That
is the plain meaning of the Presidents
vigorous words, heavy taxation has Grip
pied our national energies, suspended the
country's development, prevented invest
ments in productive enterprise, threat
ened financial disturbance, and invited
schemes of public plumber Let US re-
member the meaning of the word State
In old times it would have been difficult
to define it. A great French king once
said, 'L'Etat c'est moi In history we
have known the State, if not to consist
of, certainly to be managed, in their own
interests, by barber, fiddler, or a cour-
tesan. There is no difficulty in defining
a democratic republican or a democratic
constitutional State like the United
States or the United Kingdom. The
State means all of us, or at least, select
ed men to take care of the interests of all
of us. When taxes are laid upon the
whole people to favour particular classes,
such as farmers or manufacturers, then
the State is losing its chief function of
acting in the interests of all of us. That
is going back to bad and exploded forms
of government, when it favored class leg
islatiOn. This is what protection must
always do, and has so cOnspicuously
done in America. There privileged
classes have laid claim to be upheld by
the labor and self-denial of other people.
We allow only one class of the people in
this country to make such a claim, and
that consists of paupers; and we should
be specially Jealous to allow any other
class to sit on the same plane. Ever since
the introduction of free trade, fifty years
ago, we have labored to root out the priv
ileges of class, so that all of us might
have equal participation in the protection
of social order by the expenditure of tax
es. The principal of free trade is that
we should use our property and the pro-
ducts of our labor as we like, and ex-
change them when and where and with
whomsoever we will. Protection, on the
other hand, hampers exchanges, regu-
lates prices by tariffs, and acts as if COM
merce meant a war of retaliation on other
countries. If protection be universal it
raises the prices of all commodities if
partial it forces the State to depart from
its only true function of taking care of
all of us in order that it may favor the
interests of some of us. Its break down
in the United States shows conclusively
that every unnecessary tax becomes a
source of positive injury, for taxation at
its best is an evil. If we were all good
and virtuous over the world it would not
be required; but it is needful evil be-
cause a government is necessary to sus-
tain the weak, to protect property, and
to preserve the honor of women-in fact,
to maintain social order. Protection de-
MES this limited use of government, and
believing in the productive power of taxa
ton is trying to make something out of
nothing. 1t tries to uphold taxation, it
self by itself-as sensible an effort as if
you tried to lift yourselves by Juggling at
the straps of your own boots. The de-
yelopment of commerce, like all evolu-
tons, depends on natural laws, which