The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-08-23
Do the manufacturers pay it Z?
No NV friends the tariff IA yes

: DO IAO OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES pay IL
No. my friends, the tariff taxes
are paid by the consumers OF
the articles which are taxed and of
domestic articles of like kind, which
are manufactured in the United States.
1t is curious thing. One of the worst
things about tariff tax, is that, while
the government gets one dollar, result
ing from the tax, the domestic manu-
facturer gets five, as it is best estimated
that it never goes in the Treasury at all.
Well
HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?
A man called an importer brings
goods into the United States to be sold.
He cannot sell yard or pound until he
| pays this tariff tax. He pays the tax
therefor and then sells to the wholesale
merchant. Of course, he must get this
tax back in the price for which he sells.
or he would loose money. He therefore
puts the tax on to the original cost of
the goods and with that price
added and with the cost of Transports
ton and his reasonable commercial
profits, he sells those goods to the
wholesale merchant The wholesale
merchant sells to retail merchants and,
of course, this tax which enters into the
price continues in the price and to it
is added the profit OF the wholesale
merchant. Then the retail merchant
sells to you and, of course, he must keep
within this price for, otherwise. he
would sell for less than he gave for the
goods. Therefore the tax is in, when
the cloth is sold to you, and you,
IN the price you pay this
retail merchant for the goods,
the whole of the tariff of the importers
profit, the wholesale merchants profit
and the retail merchants profit. besides
the interest on their money. If I'Were
q schoolmaster and teaching a boy 20
years old, and he could not understand
that in ten minutes instruction,
would give him up as
HOPELESS IDIOT.
Well, now, how much do they say was
the amount of dutiable goods imported
into the United States in 1887? They
were in value $50, 325, 322; the tariff du-
ties collected were $212 ,052, 42f. There
were therefore, in that single year, taxes
levied on the United States by operation
of this tariff law $2l2, Q32, 424, which
went into the Treasury of the United
States. But that, as 1 have told you,
was the lepst part of the burden. The
domestic manufacture of the same kind
of commodities amounted to So 1863 So
19l. That is, in other words, five tril :
lions, three hundred and slxty-nine
million dollars, and as the price of
those goods was raised by the tariff in
nearly equal proportions to the price Of
the goods that were imported
into the country, the amount
which the people had in those high
prices of what they had to buy and Use,
amounted to about one thousand
millions of dollars, or five times as
much as the tax received by the govern
ment for the government. In other
words, the
WHOLE COUNTRY WAS TAXED
about one thousand millions of dollars
for the benefit of a comparatively small
portion OF the country and that is said
to be justice; that is said to be fair play /;
that is said to be for the
benefit of Americans. Why don't they
carry it out, when they find in Port
Huron lawyer whose profession don't
afford him comfortable support, why
don't they tax you ali for his benefit so
as to protect him2 Why don It they :?
They do tax man sometimes on a
medicine that he is obliged to take. [
remember one of the most satisfactory
votes l cast when in the Senate
| OF the United States was to abol-
ish the tax on quinine, so that
man with fever and sgue could b ave
his quinine without being robbed of
his means of subsistence. have said
the consumer pay the tax. If you
want authority, let me refer you to the
| men who have SPOKEN on the subject.
First, L will go back to
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
In 1882. he was the chairman of the
House committee on manufacturers.
In report made by him he said:
The doctine that duties of i'm
port seem to cheaper The price
of articles on which they are
levied, seems to conflict with
the first dictates of common sense. The
duty constitutes part of the price of
the whole mass of articles in the mar
ket. 1t is substantially paid upon an
article of domestic manufacture as we'll
as upon that of foreign production. We
say so long as an importation duty must
be paid, it must be paid by the pur-
chaser of the article and the effect must
be to increase the price of the article to
the extent of the additional duty.
We cannot subscribe, therefore, the
doctrine that the duties on imports,
protective of our own manufactures
were paid by the foreign merchant or
manufacturer.
PRESIDENT ARTHUR
In his annual message in 1887 said: 1
recommend ar enlargement of the free
list, that is. of goods that pay no duty
so as to include within it numerous
articles which yield an inconsiderable
revenue; a simplification of the COM
pick and inconsistent schedule of
duties upon certain manufactures, par
ticularly those of cotton, iron and steel,
and a substantial reduction of the
duties upon those articles and upon
sugar, molasses, wool and wool goods.
That is precisely what the Mills bill
attempts to do, and yet those
gentlemen who are bowling around
about the benefit of protection and
even some Democrats are beginning TO
tell you that this thing which President
Arthur recommended only so lately, is
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