The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-29
A REVENUE VS.. A PROTECTIVE
TARIFF.

TARIFF.
The Democratic missionaries argue that
protection ''inevitably means higher
prices for everything on which the duties
have been raised" The truth is that a
tariff which is protective is not tax,
while a revenue tariff is tax. The tariff
on sugar was tax, because it was purely
a revenue tariff, for nobody pretended
that it would lead to the production of
even one-tenth of the sugar consumed in
this country. Democratic Secretary Man
ming, in his report to congress, urged the
retention of the duty on sugar because it
was a revenue duty. Every tariff bill
passed by the Democratic party has placed
duty on sugar, raw and refined, and
every tariff bill proposed by the DEM
ocratic party has placed duty on sugar.
Sugar was made dutiable under the
Walker tariff of 1916, under the Wood
tariff bill and the two Morrison bills and
the Mills bill. Every Democrat in the last
House and Senate voted against placing
sugar on the tree list. Sugar, which has
never been free under revenue tariff, is
free today under protective tariff, be-
cause under the principle of protection we
do not tax those foreign products which
experience and thorough trial have DEM
onstrated we cannot produce in quantities
sufficient for our consumption. Because
the sugar duty was revenue duty and not
protective duty, we removed it and lifted
$50, 00O,0 900 of taxes from the neck of the
people, which under a revenue tariff
would be collected from the pockets of the
people. The sugar bounty cost the gov
eminent less than sl1, 600, 600, making our
net annual saving by removal of the purely
revenue duty on sugar $44,0O0,0O0.
We have removed the sugar duty not in
violation but in vindication of the prin-
ciple of protective tariff which requires
that articles, not Injuries, which we can
not produce in the United States, should
come in free of taxation, and imposes the
tariff upon such foreign products as come
in competition with the products of our
own land and labor. The tariff on sugar
was purely revenue duty and therefore
was a tax, but the tariff on steel rails is
protective and hence is not tax.
Abram s. Hewitt, an iron manufacturer,
| an able Democrat, declared on the floor of
the House of Representatives that of the
cost of manufacturing ton of steel rails
from the ore 80 per cent. was paid out in
wages to workmen, exclusive of superin-
tendence, clerical help, etc. The late
William L. Scott, Democrat, and Mr..
Edward Atkinson made similar calcula-
tons, Mr.. Atkinson making the percent
age higher than Mr.. Hewitt. In Mr.
Hewitts mill at Trenton $s.O5 is paid for
precisely the same amount of work for
which SO IA is paid in England. Paying
| $50 per cent. more for labor, the American
rail manufacturers still sell rails for less
than 20 per cent. more than their English
competitors ask in tho American market.
| And this is done in spite of the fact that
90 per cent. OF the cost goes to labor, and
the tariff would allow the manufacturers
| to charge 40 per cent. more than their
| English competitors ask. The protective
| tariff on steel rails has by developing the
| industry made the competition SO sharp
that the consumer, instead of paying all the
! bounty, only pays half of it. Under these
| circumstances the tariff on steel rails is
| surely not tax, but money in the pockets
| of American labor. The protective tariff
imposes a tax on competing foreign indus
| tries, the taxing of which benefits our own
| producers and does no injury to our
! own consumers; it builds up our
own industry and increases our
| internal industrial activity: it furnishes
employment for labor at better wages than
| can be secured elsewhere. On the other
| hand tariff for revenue would be levied
on foreign products which will not favor
| home production. 1t increases the de-
mand for foreign goods and dlminishes the
use of domestic goods; it furnishes for
eign labor with work and takes it from our
own labor; it would stop our mills and
| manufacturing shops unless our labor
would work at the same wages rs labor in
competing countries.
When the Democracy in the next con-
gress frame the tariff for revenue which
the Spokane love feast demands what
| will it be? Will It have the free wool and
| taxed sugar which Oregon rejected in lsSs
by nearly 1000 Republican majority?
VIII il restore sugar to the dutiable list at
"a cents a pound; will it make lax and
hemp free; will it open the farms of the
Northern frontier to the competition of
the Canadian farmer; will it tax tea and
cofee2 1t will never dare to raise its
revenue from sugar again, for the people
would not stand it; it dare not tax tea or
coffee; il will be obliged TO resort 10 an in
come tax. OF the result of the substitu-
ton Of revenue for a protective tariff
Major Mckinley saws:
Commencing with the country prospe-ouS
under protection, the Democrats have enacted a
revenue tariff, and the people OF the country, in.
uueneed by supposed ana temporary profit. buy
foreign goods instead OF domestic goods. Thev
may be cheaper Tor the time. But this eyentu-
ates Ia destruction oi our industries. for it in
creases the use OF foreign goods, and en-
coursges the disuSe of'domestie goods, and with
the oisuse vi domestic soods comes cimin-