The Iola register., 1890-11-07
THE NEW TARIFF.

Prof. Thompson on the Changes-Not One
Duty in -Four Increased The Farmer Par
ticuIariy Benefited. H.' '.
The new tariff puts on the free list
larger proportion of our importations
than did any of its predecessors Un-
der the tariff of 1888 about one-third of
them came in free of duty. Uner that
just enacted nearly one-half of them
will do so. But the goods thus favored
are those we are not able to produce for
ourselves and therefore such as come
under the head of natural and indis-
pe1sible commerce.
If one were to listen to our free trade
critics he might suppose that the ma
jority in Congress had no other concep-
tion of tariff revision than the in
crease of duties along the whole line,
and that the changes made by the Nc
Kinley tariff consisted of an indiscrim-
mate addition to the duties already i'm
posed. i have examined S21 items of
the new law, comparing them with the
corresponding items of the law of 1888
In the case of 1t8 / am not able to say
whether they effect reduction or an
increase. OF these lis are alterations
from ad valorem to specific duties, such
as Mr.. Manning proposed for the whole
tariff, while three are changes
in the other direction. This
is an Improvement 1t is better
to specify a given amount of duty
per pound or yard or gallon of any i'm
ported commodity than to say that the
duty is ten or twenty or forty per cent
of its value, as the former duty is surer
to be collected honestly; but it would
takc a closer knowlege of prices than /
have to determine which duty is the
higher. Besides these there are about
half dozen more Of the items which /
can not make out from the copy before
me.
This leaves 693 items with regard to
which we can see what the new law does
in the matter of altering the incidence
of duties. find that in the case of 244
the duties are left as in the law of 1888.
In the case of 1873 the duties are reduced,
not increased, and thirty-eight others
are transferred to the free list In ITO
cases existing duties are increased,
while twenty-three articles which were
admitted free under the law of 1888 are
to pay duty under the law of 1890.
1t Is worth noticing that the articles
in which the farmer Is directly inter-
ested are treated to increase Of import
duty more freely than any other class
No fewer than eleven of the twenty
three new duties are for the farmers
direct benefit; and of seveRty-five other
items in which he is very directly in
terested as producer, twenty-five are
converted from ad valorem to specific
duties, and twenty-nine are cases of an
increase of duties, while only In eight
cases are duties lowered, and most of
those are Southern produce. II the whole
tariff had been revised after that fash
ion, the free traders would have made
much more of an outcry than they have
been able to raise. Taking the tariff
as whole, not one duty in four is in
creased, and the things put on the free
list exceed those taken off it by sew
enty per cent In the farmers part Of
the Law we find that nearly half the
duties are increased palpably, while
others are made more stingent by con-
version to specific, and nothing is put
on the free list in whose home produc-
ton he is interested.