The St. Johns herald., 1892-04-07
Tariff Legislation.

l the HOuSe the lOllOWlng speech III
 opening debate on the tariff:
 Mr. Chairman-The last Congress
 imposed the highest tariff taxes ever
 levied in this country. It also made
 the most extravagant appropria-
 tions ever made here in time of
 peace. This Congress was sent here
 to correct both evils. The expendi-
 lures in the two years for which the
 last Congress appropriated besides
 the deficiencies, aggregated $1 ,009,- O00,O00-$40 per family annually,
 or more than s5OO,OO0.OOO each year,
 about third of all the money in existence in the United States.
 When we take from the currency the $1OO,OOO,OOO gold held for re- demption purposes in the Treasury, the reserve required in the national banks and the different reserves held from circulation in other ways we find that these expenditures reached annually nearly one-half of all the money in actual circula- tion. Can there be permanent pros perity while one half or even one- third of all the money has to go through the hands of a Federal tax gatherer every year, besides the taxes for State, county and municipal purposes. There is a remedy: Im- pose less taxes and spend less money. That is what this Congress means to do.
 MT. Chairman, the tariff law has now been in operation for one year and five months. Where are the beneficial effects that were to follow from it? Where is the magnificent price the farmer and wool grower was to realize from it? Where are the increased wages the laboring man was to get?
 1 see before me many men who voted for that monstrous measure. If the facts were with them they would proclaim them to the world. 1 defy contradiction when I say the farmers realize from 2 to 3 cents less on the pound for his wool than he did before. And 1 challenge any Representative her to point to a sin gle line of manufactures in which the laborers' wages have been in creased by that law.
 The laborer has been forced to pay more for the roof that shelters him, for the hat that covers his head and the woollens that covers hls back. He has had to pay more for. the linen he wears, the hammer and hoe with which he works, yet his wages have not gone up 1 cent. What benefit has increased protec- ton been to him?
 It was passed under pretense of a desire to benefit him, yet whilst his wages stand still, or go down. what his wife and children consume has been increased in price unconscion- lbly.
 I ask any of the Republicans in he Committee of Ways and Means 0 point to a single laborer whose wages have been increased by that aw If it diminishes the revenue 'eceived by the Government: if it loes not increase the value of the 'aw material to the farmer: if it loes not increase the wages of la DOT if 1t fosters trusts if it makes pooling profitable, in heavens name ct us not further legalize the rob- { ,ery, but try some better methods.
 Hearings were had by the Ways md Means Committee on the Me- Zinley bill Some farmers and rep . entatives of agricultural associa- ions came before the committee. Without a single exception, so far IS I now remember, they testified hat the value of farms had gone , town within the last six years all he way from 9 to 50 per cent Among those who came urging re- I ief for the people came the many I