Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-18
THE TARIFF TUSSLE BEGUN
A LONG SPEECH FROM EACH SIDE
 OF THE HOUSE.

Members.
 WASHINGTON. April 1S-The feature of the proceedings of the house of representa- tives yesterday was the beginning of the de- bate on the tariff bill. Mir. Mills, of Texas, chairman of the ways and means committee, opened for the Democrats, while Mir. Kelly represented the Republicans.
 Mr. Mills began his speech after the call of committees was finished, and by unanimous vote was given unlimited time to deliver his case.
 MT. Mills began by saying that the war tariff taxes, after the lapse of quarter of century, were higher than during the war; The income tax imposed to meet war ex- penses was swept away. It was a tax on wealth, but it was gone; but the war tax on clothing, on food, on implements of labor, re- mained, and the war was still being prose cuted against the people-a fiscal war, ex- hausting in it's demands every effort to remove or lower that taxation had been resisted and defeated. The Democrats had been taunted, Mir. Mills said, with the charg that they had failed to reduce taxation This charge had been made by the minority, which had been guilty of preventing action on the many bills brought into the house by the committee on ways and means.
 Turning his attention to the woolen manu- factures, he argued that the public at large was injured by the present excessive tax, and nobody benefited. High duties prohibited and limited importations and exportations More than twenty years had elapsed since the war ended, but these war taxes still remained, and they were heavier to-day than they were on the average during the five years of the existence of hostilities. The average rate of duty during the last five years amounted to 44.51 per cent, and dur ing the last year the average was 47 TO-
 After this large increase had been made by congress, MT. Mills said, congress had imposed slight direct, or internal revenue tax upon domestic manufactures, and that tax had brought into the treasury, in 1866, $127, ,OOO, ,OOO. That was but a tithe of the heavy burdens that were laid upon imports It amounted to about per cent on the whole manufactured products of the country in 1866. But that tax was gone. It could not live. It was tax on wealth. Congress had imposed a tax on incomes to help carry on the war. and there were 470, TO people in the United States in 1866 that had $7O7, 900 ,OOO of net income upon which they were as- sessed duty which brought into the treas ury in 1866 $22,000,000. But that tax had gone It was tax on wealth. There had been tax on insurance companies It was gone There had been tax on express con- panies It was gone. There had been a tax on bank deposits and bank capital. It was gone Three hundred million that had been paid by the wealth of the country had been swept away, and the burden of taxation had been made heavier as it had been loaded upon the shoulders of those who had to support themselves and the govern ment.
 All these taxes on wealth had gone, and the gentlemen of the minority boasted that they had reduced taxation to the amount of $36O, GOO OOO, while the Democratic party had reduced it only bagatelle. That was the splendid column those gentlemen had erected All the tax on wealth had passed away, and all the burdens cast upon the shoulders of the laboring man.
 They were feeding the people of Europe, and when we put high duties on the goods they sent us in exchange for food it amounted to taxing our own agricultural exports. A reduction of duties would not, as asserted, check manufactures and cramp labor We always imported more goods when prices were high Under lower duties we could export more goods, our manufactories would run steadily and labor would be constantly employed. Higher wages were made by coal, steam and machinery, and higher wages meant lower cost of production This ac- counted for the fact that free trade England
 
 and Germany, and yet controlled the worlds market.
 In concluding, MT. Mills said he hoped the bill, which had favor throughout the coun- try, would receive majority of the votes of the house, though it was not all that the com mittee could ask. It was a very moderate bill, yet it would send comfort and happiness intos allLthe homes and bosoms of the poor laboring people of this country, and he asked the house, in behalf of these people, to con sider their claims and help to reduce the bur- dens that had been loaded upon them.
 When he sat down applause and cries of "Vote, "Vote," came from the Democratic side of the hall He was at once surrounded by a crowd of Democratic members, who pressed forward to shake his hand and tender their congratulations.
 MT. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, at once took the floor in opposition to the bill.
 The enactment of this bill, he said, would instantly paralyze the enterprise and energy of the people. Under the baleful influence of such law the report of the census of 1890 would announce the overthrow of our manu- featuring supremacy and the reduction of our commanding commercial position to that of colonial dependence. The gentlemen who framed this bill were, with but two excep- tions representatives of what was once slave territory The bill was an anachronism; it had no relation to this era; it belonged to the saddest epoch in our national history, the period between 1924 and 1861. During that period slavery dominated our national coun- cils and guided the administration of our national affairs, in hostility to national in- terests, and in the interests of free trade twice threatened war.
 It was in the interest of free trade that war was threatened in support of the doctrine of notification, and it was in the interest of free trade that the country was involved for moro than four years in fratricidal war. The entire south knew that free trade was essential to the perpetuity of slavery in the republic, and it should also know that the logic that could defend free trade in a country endowed with the boundless diversity of the elements of manufacture and the supply of the forces for their conversion, which we enjoy, vanished when slavery was abolished.
 Putting wool on the free list, he said, would abolish sheep husbandry, destroy the inn mense capital embarked therein, and i'm poverish the more than ,OOO, 900 men who own fiocks or are employed in their care
 The transfer of tin plate and cotton ties and other products of coal and iron ~ore to the free list and the reduction of the duties on steel rails. structural iron, and many other forms of iron and steel sufficiently to with draw protection from them, and permit E.. Aoo1 OlIr ms arlx xx,o,,1<l