Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-10-22
Pub Ilc and Private Taxation.

how ''propose to meet the expenses OF
the Government il he takes the tariff of
| They say it takes all the tariff now to
meet the expenses of the Government
After their recent experience with q
Billion Dollar Congress | do not wonder
that Mr. Wallis neighbors are getting un.
easy about meeting the expenses of gov
/ ernment. and especially when they see
our long-standing Treasury surplus
about to give place to a Treasury deficit
But they need have no fear that tariff
reformers will starve the Government or
compel it to resort to more vextat ious
methods of taxation,
| They are not seeking s'to take off the
| tariff entirely or to abahdon tariff taxes
as the principal source of revenue.
| l suspect those neighbors, like many
other good people, are resting com fort
ably in the belief that they pay little OF
no tariff taxes, because they never see the
Collector with his tax bill, not under
! Standing that be comes, as Colonel Mills
told the Ohio people. like a thief. in the
night, with muffied steps and velvety
touch. Undoubtedly there are grave OBJ
jections and lurking dangers in any syi-
| tenn of taxation that corceals from tfe
Taxpayer what he pays and when and
how he pays.
| 1t is difficult to fit such system to the
isafe working of representative govern
ment. 1t deadens the vigilance which is
the price at which we hold our liberties,
for unless men clearly see and feel all
| these things it is exceedingly difficult
with the unthinking it is utterly impossi-
ble--to arouse them to the injustice OF
class taxation or TO the peril and wrong OF
extravagant expenditure.
| But tariff reform is not tariff abolition,
and the vital error of Mr.. Wallis neigh
bors is in'their believing that ''it ta'es all
the tariff now to meet the expenses efthe
Government"
| Under the Mckinley Bill, as under its
immediate predecessors, the Government
| does not Get all the tariff, or even the
larger share of It,. What the exact share
of the Government is no man can tell
with certainty, but those best qualified to
Judge ofits working declare. after care
| full study of the provisions of the bill, j,
that less than one-fitth part of the taxes
it exacts from the people goes into the
public treasury, all the rest going to Il
limited number of people; in the main to
great capitalists and corporations. to in
sure them prosperity in business. And
that is the whole controversy. 1t is
| against this monstrous abuse of the tax
| ing power that tariff re form is summon
| ing the American people to battle. 1t
does not seek to cut of needed public rev.
enue, but to abolish or immensely reluce
enormous private taxes now collected
through the tariff.
Nearly all the wrongs and expressions
of government have come from abuse Or
usurpation of the taxing power. In a
country that processes and aims to he
free there is but one admissible principle
and one safe rule. and that is that all tax
alton shall be for public purposes what
the people pay. the peoples government
should receive.
When the power of taxation is exercis-
ed to provide means for necessary public
expenses. it is a legitimate use of it.
When the power of taxation is loaned or
subIet to any individual to help him in
crease the price of what he sells to the
rest of the people. it is ar illegitimate use
of it. The one is tariff for revenues;
the other is tariff for protection. The
beneficiaries and defenders of the latter
system pleasantly call it the protection of
American industry against the competi-
ton of foreign industry, because its
method of operating is by imposing a
high or prohibitlve fiue upon foreign
products that might seek to enter our
markets.
Stripping away this disguise of words,
we see that is nothing but device tor
another citizen higher prices than the
buyer would have to pay to a foreigner
for the same commodities. Now law
that effects this result must enable every
man to get back. in turn, from all others,
in increased prices tor his products, all
that i1 has made him pay out out in in
creased prices for the products of others,
or it violates the fundamental rule Of
equal rights. But if it brings back to ev-
cry man all that it has forced him to paw
to others, all the citizens in the country
will be in the exact situation i'm which
they were before the mutual taxation be-
gan, or in the exact situation in which
they would have been if the mutual .axa-
ton had never begun-which is the very
thing protectionIsts express such horror
of. Ii there are any citizens to whom it
has not brought back all it has forced
them to pay 20 others, they are wronged,
Disseminated against, and pushed from
the plane of equal citizenship down to a
lower grade.
Now there are two great classes OF
things whose prices cannot be raised by
a tariff law: First, those things that we
send out to sell in other countries whose
price is fixed by the foreign markets-as,
for example. our surplus farm products;
secondly. those things which we make for
ourselves without possibility of compete
ton from foreigners in our home markets.
Such law, therefore is limited in its
operation to those things which foreign
ers NAV offer TO sell us in our own mar
kets in competition with home producers.
Hence it is only the home producers of
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