Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-03-07

ment OF Its own-a governor, legislature,
a supreme and other courts, and all officers
which are needed to perform official duties in
independent states. Except SO far as the
powers of their legislatures are limited by
the Federal constitution they are sovereigns.
Each has the power to determine what shall
be the qualification of voters and the manner
in which elections shall be held; each has the
power to contract debts for internal inn
provements and for other purposes.
Each has, of course, power to tax for the
support of its state government. By each au-
thority is given to its cities and counties to
levy and collect taxes for the payment of
their current expenses, and so freely is this
authority exercised that in some states the
state, county and city taxes amount to near
ly per cent. upon all real and personal prop
erty. A large part of the personal property
escapes taxation, and the real estate may be
undervalued; but taxes are heavy in all the
states, in some burdensome. If to the state
and county and city taxes the indirect taxes
to which consumers are subject by protective
duties upon imports were added, it might be
said that there is no civilized nation in the
world in which the aggregate of taxation is
so high as in the United States. 1t might be
said also that there is no other country SO
able to bear it.
Now as states, counties and cities are sup
ported by direct taxation upon lands and per-
sonal property, and these taxes are as heavy
as large part of the taxpayers are able to
bear, the Federal government must be main
ly supported by duties upon imports. Taxes
upon incomes have been resorted to and might
be again in periods of emergency, but so diff
fcult was it, and would be again, to make
tain and are so easily concealed, that it may
be regarded as fixed fact that neither in
come taxes nor taxes upon the states will be
again resorted to by the Federal government.
1t therefore follows that upon import duties
must the chief reliance of the government for
revenue be based.
WAY FREE TRADE IS IMPOSSIBLE
Considerable revenue will, as heretofore, be
derived, under an internal revenue system,
from taxes upon domestic manufactures es-
pecially whisky and tobacco, but the main
reliance of the government must, as has al
ways been the case, be upon tariff, and as
the public expenditures are large, and are
more likely to be increased than diminished,
the tariff can never be a low one. Besides,
the people willingly bear taxation upon what
they use, while they would rebel against
much higher taxes if directly assessed.
Free trade may be among the things hoped
for, but it is one that never will be realized
by the people of the United States. Every
intelligent man in the United States knows
this, and yet there are men in high places,
and managers of influential public journals,
who speak of those who favor reform of the
tariff as being free traders or tariff smashers.
As, therefore, from absolute necessity, there
must be tariff, it is of the last Importance
that it should be so framed as not to be I'M
necessarily burdensome upon consumers nor
at war with useful branches of domestic in
dustry, nor bar to free exchanges with for
eign countries. 1t has been clearly shown by
the advocates of tariff reform that the pres
emit tariff is not of this character; that it is
unnecessarily burdensome to the great body
of the people; that it is at war with many
branches of domestic industry; that it is a bar
to international trade. 1t was created as a
war measure, in a great national emergency,
to strengthen the credit of the government,
and to secure large revenue. These objects
having been accomplished, it should long since
have been subject to thorough revision to &C
commodate it to the changed condition of the
country.
The question, therefore, which for years
has demanded, and now imperatively de-
tween tariff and free trade, but whether the
tariff should be mainly for protection or
mainly for revenue; in other Words whether,
in the imposition of duties, revenue should be
the object and protection the incident, or
whether protection should be the object and
revenue the incident. As my opinion upon
this great point has been fully and frequently
expressed, I am not disposed to repeat it. I
would only remark in passing that as large
revenues must be derived from duties upon
imports, it will be very difficult so to modify
the tariff that it will fail to be protective. I
proceed, therefore, to examine what Mr..
Blaine says about the effects of tariff legisla-
ton upon the public welfare. He takes
broadly the position that not only has the
country been prosperous under protective
tariffs, but that the reverses to which it has
been subject in its onward and upward career
have been, with single exception, the legit-
innate consequences of an abandonment of the
protective policy, To prove the correctness
of this statement, he refers to the period in
which these reverses occurred,
THE REvERsES OF 1877.
Of these reverses have only to say that IL
I have read correctly the financial history of
that period these reverses were not the result
of the changes of the tariff, but of the tide OF
speculation which swept over the country
near the close of the war and at its termina-
lion, diminishing industry and plunging peo-
pie into debt. These reverses, like those of
later days, were inevitable. and they would
have been of equal severity if the Wsr tariff
had been continued. The seeds of financial
trouble had been sowed broadcast before the
tariff was touched, and they bore legitimate
fruits; they were, in fact, but repetition of
what occurred at the close of the revolution
airy war, when there was no tariff.
THE REyERsEs OF 1887.
OF these reyerses and all subsequent ones
can speak advisedly, because held positions
Of financial responsibility and had personal
interests at stake. 1 was in 1887, and had
been for considerable time, the manager Of
the branch at Fort Wayne and member Of
the board of control of the State Bank of In
diana. Mr.. Blaine's statement that ''the
years 1886 were distinguished for all
manner OF business hazard' but family de-
scribes them. They were years, especially
1885, of the widest speculation. Ir the east
it was varied In character, but its dangerous
elements were excessive credits, and there
were few things that could be bought or sold
that were not affected by it.
In the west it was confined to wild lands
and lands unimprogsd and town lots, many
of which never had any existencas except
upon the recorded plats. 1t was speculation
similar to that in che timber lands of Maine
q few years before. Lands bought of the
government at sl.ss5 per acre were soon sold
ON credit at 81, So and in some cases $40.
Hundreds of tracts were laid off in town
lots where the original forests were still
standing. What took place under my own OBJ
servation seems now to be too absurd to have
been real On the Maumee river, from it's
mouth on Lake Erie, there was for miles a
succession of towns. Some of them, like
Ma4m,ee City, Perrysburg, Manhattan and
Toledo, wefs realities, but most of them ex-
listed upon paper only. IN the spring of 1886
young man whom l met at Maulm23.ee City
said to me that he had made great deal Of
money in few months. To my inquiry how
he had made it, he replied, "By buying and
selling lots" ''MaNmeee City," said be, lilies,
as you know, at the foot Of ths paDids; and is
destined to be one Of the great cities Of the
wests property is rising rapidly in value, and
am buying and selling every day"
GLOW did you raise the money to COM
mence with?'
'Oh, very little money is required in this