The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-08-21
the truth. refer to the tariff question, as
il is commonly called now.
n0IrNn To MAKE 1t AIN

BOUND TO MAKE 1T PLAIN.
Il presume that there Is no man in this
vast audience who does not know what is
meant by tho word tariff or the term
tariff law and yet it can do us no harm,
and may lead TO precision of speech, aud to
comprehension of what l have to
say, if begin by definition
of what is the tariff The tariff my friends,
is nothing else in this world than tax
levied by the general government upon I'M
pOrtations brought into the United States
for sale, the effect Of which is to raise the
price of every c mmodity thus imported,
and also the price of all domestic commodl-
tics of the same nature made within the
| United States.
PAID BY THE CONSUMER.
This tax is paid by tho consumer Of the
| article When your state tax is levied it is
levied on PROPERTY 1t is paid by property
a man Of much property pays much more
than the man of little property, aud
the man of no property pays none
at all But the tariff is tax
| that is paid 10y the con inner of so-called
protected articles. He pays it not to the
| tax gatherer, not to any officer OF the gov
ernment but he pays it in the price which
he gives for every protected article that
he buys
AN ILLUSTRATION.
''Let us suppose, for instance by way of
| Illustration that an importer of cloth pur
chases in England 81 900 worth no, ] won't
take so much as that, ! will say enough to
| make suit OF clothes for man He pays
for it there $40 He brings it to the United
! Stat s. Before he can get it out of tho
| custom house ut the place where he lands
| he must pay on that tax called the tariff,
and the probability is, among the enormous
! rates i'll the schedule on WOODEN goods that
he will pay IA tax of not less than 60 cents
| Al I'm tln+ l., L., ,xytn
tax on the $40 worth of cloth that he has
| bought. Then it has cost SIC, that cloth has.
HOW 1T COUNTS UP
"Now if the man who imports that cloth
sells it to a wholesale merchant no must of
course put the tax that he pays on to 1t in
| the price, otherwise he would lose money
| by the operation, and so when this importer
sells to tho wholesale merchant he charges
him sl6 for that cloth which cost him
originally but $40; nay more, he charges
him SIG and his mercantile profit on the Sc
tax AS we'll as on the $40 original
cost of the goods. Tho wholesale merchant
sells it to the retail merchant and the retail
merchant sells it to his customers.
CONSTANTLY INCREASING.
"Of course this price, with each mer-
chants profit continues, and is in the goods
when they are sold to the consumers, SO
that by the time one of you buys that cloth
you find you have to pay for it
from $l6 to $40, perhaps not loss than $50,
for that which originally cost $40. SO here
has been a tax imposed on the consumer
which amounts in effect to nearly, or quite,
as much as the original cost of the goods.
PRoTECTIONIsT FOLLY.
"Now, my friends, this is SO true that
there is scarcely thing that you wear the
price of which is not increased by this tariff
tax. There are men audaciOus enough to
say, mon who are advocating high protec-
tive duties of tariffs, there are men audac-
ious enough to say that the nigh protective
tariff is for the benefit of tho labor
ing man. Why In the name of
all that is common sense and
reason, how can a laboring man be aided
by tax that begins with the crown of his
head and extends to the soles of his feet,
and taxes everything that is between them.
Applause and laughter That taxes him
on his hat, taxes him on his shirt, taxes
him on his coat, taxes him on
his vest, taxes him on his pants, taxes him
on his underclothing, taxes him on his
stockings and taxes him on his shoes, and
even to the little neck tie that is around his
neck it levies its tax upon it,
CAN'T BE A BENEFIT.
''How in the name of heaven can it be
that the labOring man is benefited by such
n taxa No, my friends, of all the humbugs
by which men were attempted to be de-
ceived, this humbug of the laboring man
being benefited by high protective tariff is
the greatest ever | heard of All, but
says some one, it enables the manu-
facturer in this country to pay
higher wages to his laboring men,
and therefore it is a benefit to them. Ny
friends, did you ever know any manufact-
urer that paid higher wages to his hands
because Of an increase of the tariff? If you
how maj with / hnr
never.
BEATS THE WHAT is 1T.
There is a man named Barnum in this
country, great Snowman, who has
gathered together in his show more
curious things than perhaps can
be found in any other single
place on the face of the earth, but among
all his curiosities he has never found such a
curiosity as a manufacturer who paid higher
wages to his hands because of a raise in the
tariff Laughter and applausel
Another one of the receptions of the
tariff orators, or high protection theorists,
is to say that the consumer does not pay the
tax. ! have shown you how he did pay it
in the price that he gives for his articles,
but | want to ask any man who tells
me or tells you that the consumer
don't pay the tax, If he don't pay it, in
Gods name who docs pay ita How comes
it that the goods that cost but $40 before
there was any tax upon them, after that
sells them for the prlce of $40 and the tax
added, and the merchants profit upon thatf
ANOTHER ABsURDITY.
"But my friends, that is not all The man
who stands fair in your community, and
who has face that would license him as a
preacher of the gospel, just open his
looks. Such man will get
up before his fellow-ctizsns and
tell them that high tariff lessons in
stead of increases the price of commodities
Why my friends if that is the case, if u
high tariff reduces prices, please tell me
why it is tina all the manufacturers are in
favor Of high TARIFF Do they want
to reduce the price of their own
goods. DO they want to make less money!
Why 40 they work SO hard to increase the
tariff if to increase it would reduce the
price of goodsl That is another one of the
absurdities.
a