Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-10-29
Ben Butler on the Tariff.

Ben Butler recently wrote a letter
in favor of Gen. Banks candidacy
for congress to some Massachusetts
friends, in which the following oc-
Cured:
cit will be seen that the whole
difference between the contending
parties is the manner in which the
revenue shall be diminished. So
the country has only to choose as to
the manner in which the diminution
of revenue shall be effected. The
Democratic party insists that it shall
be very largely done by putting now
dutiable articles on the free list, TAX
ing off the duty in favor of the pro-
Queer of wool. That duty has raised
the production in this country from
100000 pounds of wool in 1860
to 300,000,000 pounds by estima-
ton in the present year. Has any
good reason been presented for max
ing SO great a change in regard to
one of our most fourishing and i'm
portant industries? The only one
presented is that it will make cloth
and clothing cheaper. But it is not |
claimed by anybody, nor is it fact,
that clothing, especially the articles
of necessary clothing worn by the
producing classes, were ever cheaper
| than they are now. A days wages |
of laborer in this country, it will |
be admitted, will buy more and bet
ter clothing here than days wages
of a laborer in England will buy |
there, where free trade rules. Why
open the wool industry to the COM
petition of the world by putting it on
the free list, and benefting thereby |
nobody but the foreign producer?
The great addition to the free list |
by the Republicans is to dimidish
the price of sugar by relieving that
from about as many millions of tax
alton as the Democrats relieve wool. |
In the case of sugar there is no sub
stantial interference with any Amer
lean industry as to the amount of |
sugars-for common, not luxurious |
consumption, like maple sugar, is
hardly sufficient to be reckoned. |
Both parties attempt about an equal
! of inf inc
liquors in the internal revenue taxa
ton. And this interference with in
ternal taxation on liquors illustrates,
perhaps better than can be done by
any argument, the views of the two
parties upon the tax on whisky, and
their general views upon what shonld
be done toward aiding the American
industries. The Republicans take
what may amount to S15,OOO,OOO,
perhaps, of taxation off of liquors
by exempting from taxation distilled
spirits in the form used in the man
ufactures and arts. OF course every
dollar saved to the manufacturer by
such removal of the tax will aid him
in competing with the foreign man
ufacturer where distilled spirits are
used, and where they are used in the
arts largely it is in a form that con-
verts them into another substance,
and in so far decreases their use as
beverage.
/ suppose it is not generally known
that the Mills bill takes the tax off
the retail trade of liquors by the re-
peal of the special tax on the retail
dealers in Intoxicating liquors. Say,
in round numbers 81, 100000 of what
the liquor dealers pay for their Ii
censes to sell it, is taken off by the
Mills bill, without anybody asking it
to be done, so far as | know. In
other words, the Mills bill permits
everybody to retail liquor free of any
United States license. That 81, $780,
900 thus thrown away. the only effect
of which is to make a trade which
most of the states prohibit-retail
liquor selling-more profitable, would
have paid the pensions of 33,096
widows at SIP month, and saved
the President great deal of labor
in vetoing several hundred pension
bills. The repeal of the retail liq-
uor dealers license diminishes the
surplus very fast The vetoing of
100 widows pension bills, more or
less, by the President adds to the
surplus very slowly, but both are
Democratic methods of dealing with
the surplus, emanating from the
) same source, upon which the people
must pass in the coming election.
Again there is a curious thing in
t favor of the Southern politician, but
against the Southern people, in the
Mills bill. There has been under the
internal revenue law special tax on
the manufactures of stills, a prohi-
bition of still manufacturing. No
2 body could make a still except for a
t licensed distiller under a penalty of
| $1,000, and the licensed still worker
paid small tax to carry on that in
e dustry, amounting as estimated to
2 1921. That is abolished by the
. Mills bill. We won't say anything