Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-09-27
CLEVELAND ON THE TARIFF.
Extracts from His Famous Message of
 nec R T2SS

Dec. 6, 1887. Our present tariff laws, the vicious, negotiable and illogical source of un- necessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended. These laws, as their primary and plain effect, raise the price to consumers of all articles i'm ported and subject to duty by precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus the amount of the duty measures the tax paid by those who purchase for use these important articles. Many of these things, however, arc raised or manufactured in our own country, and the duties now levied upon foreign goods and products are called protection to these home manufactures because they render it possible for those of our people who are manufacturers to make these taxed arti- cles and sell them for price equal to that demanded for the imported goods that have paid customs duty
 So it happens that while comparatively few use the imported articles, millions of our people, who never use and never saw any of the foreign products, pur- chase and use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor nearly or quite the same en-
 
 imported articles. Those who buy i'm ports pay the duty charged thereon into the public treasury, but the majority of our citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, pay sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer. This reference to the operation of our tariff laws is not made by way of instruction, but in order that we may be constantly reminded of the manner in which they impose bur den upon those who consume domestic | products as well as those who consume imported articles, and thus create a tax upon all our people.
 The reduction of taxation demanded | should be so measured as not to necessi- | tate or justify either the loss of employ ment by the workingman or the lessen ing of his wages, and the profits still re- maining to the manufacturer, after a necessary readjustment, should furnish no excuse for the sacrifice of the inter- est of his employees either in their op- | portunity to work or in the diminution of their compensation. Nor can the | worker in manufactures fail to under. stand that while high tariff is claimed to be necessary to allow the payment of | remuneratlve wages, it certainly results in very large increase ill the price of l nearly all sorts of manufactures, which | in almost countless forms he needs for | the use of himself and his family. He receives at the desk of his employer his wages, and perhaps before he reaches his home is obliged in a purchase fo: | family use of an article which embraces his own labor to return in the payment of the increase in price which the tariff | permits the hard earned compensation of many days of toll.
 The farmer and the agriculturist, who manufacture nothing, but who pay the increased price which the tariff imposes upon every agricultural implement, upon all he wears and upon all he uses and owns. except the increase of his focks and herds and such things as his bus bandry produces from the soil, is invited to aid in maintaining the present situa, tion, and he is told that high duty on imported wool is necessary for the ben. eft of those who have sheep to shear il order that the price of their wool may be increased. They of course are not l rem]uueu LudG Ln0 1dTner WnO mas nc sheep is by this scheme obliged in his purchases of clothing and woolen goods to pay tribute to his fellow farmer as 2 well as to the manufacturer and mer- chant. Nor is any mention made of the fact that the sheep owners themselves and their households must wear clothing and use other articles manufactured from the wool they sell at tariff prices and thus as consumers must return their share of this increased price to the tradesmen.
 
 The radical reduction of the duties imposed upon raw material used in manufactures, or its free importation, is of course an important factor in any ef- fort to reduce the price of these neces- saries. It would not only relieve them from the increased cost caused by the tariff on such material, but the manu- factured product being thus cheapened that part of the tariff now laid upon such product as @ compensation to oul manufacturers for the present price of raw material could be accordingly mod