Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1891-11-25

acts from the people goes into public
treasury, all the rest going to a limited
number of people in the main to great !
capitalists and corporations, to insure
them prosperity in business. And
that is the whole controversy. 1t is
against this monstrous abuse Of the tax
ing power that tariffreform is summon
ing the American people to battle. II
does not seek to cut of needed public
revenue, but to abolish or immensely
reduce these enormous private taxes
now collected through the tariff,
Nearly all the wrongs and oppres-
sions of government have come from
abuse or usurpation of the taxing pow
er. In country that processes and
aims to be free there is but one admis-
sible principle and one safe rule, and
that is that all taxation shall be for
public purposes-what the people pay,
the peoples government should
receive.
When the power of taxation is ex-
ercised to provide means for necessary
public expenses, it is legitimate use
of it. When the power of taxation is
loaned or sublet to any individual to
help him increase the price of what he
sells to the rest of the people, it is an
illegitimate use of it. The one is
tariff for revenue the other is tariff
for protection. The benefciaries and
defenders of the latter system pleas
antly call it the protection of Ameri-
can industry, because its method of
operating is by imposing a high or
prohibitive fine upon foreign products
that might seek to enter our markets
Stripping away this disguise of
words, we see that it is nothing but a
device for compelling, by law, one
citizen to pay to another citizen high
er 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 for his products, all
that it has made him pay out in in
creased prices for the products of
others, or it violates the fundamental
rule of equal rights. But it brings
back to every man all that it has fore
ed him to pay to others, all the citizens
in the country will be in the exact
situation in which they were before
the mutual taxation began, or in the
exact situation in which they would
have been if the mutual taxation had
never begun-which is the very thing
protectionists express such horror
: Of If there are any citizens to whom
F it has not brought back all it has fore.
ed them to pay to others, they are
wronged, Disseminated against, and
} pushed from the plane of equal citi-
zenship down to lower grade.
Now there are two great classes Of
things whose prices cannot be raised
by tariff law: First, those things
that we send ont to sell in other coun
tries whose prices are fixed by the
foreign markets-as, for example, oul
surplus farm products F.; secondly, those
: things that we make for ourselves
without possibility Of competition from
foreigners in our home markets. Such
a law, therefore, is limited in its oper
atoms to those things which foreigner,
may offer to sell us in our markets il
competition with home producers
E Hence it is our home producers o
this last class of things for whose ben
D eft the tariff can increase the price o
s their product; and it is only from thu
9 home purchasers of those product
/. that the tariff can exact that increas
ed price.
But the home producers of this clas
$ of products are only a small part o
our great army of producers. 1t is thu
, few and always the few, then, who art
> the beneficiaries of a protective tariff
and it is the many and always TIT
many who are the victims of a protec
: tive tariff. The moment such Law
attempts to extend its benefits to al
, its effect is neutralized, for it cal
: give nothing to any citizen except by
first taking it from some other citizen
However, it can never be anything
but class law. its system of taxation
class system-taxing the many for tn,
benefit of the few.-William L
Wilson.