The record-union., 1892-03-10

The speaker denounced the rebate feat
ure of the Mckinley bill. by this
MEANS" he declared, "very many agri-
cultural implements and products of
American manufacturers were sold at u
much lower rate to foreigners out of the
United States than to citizens in it." Con-
tinulng, McMillin declared another most
serious objection TO the high rates of duty
is the destructive influence it has on our
commerce, and added: MANY friends of
high protection pretend to believe, and
have busted themselves to show, that the
duty collected is not tax upon the peo-
pie; they claim 1t is a premium or tax
PAID by foreigners, whose manufactures
are sold III this country, for the privilege
OF selling them here. Those holding to
this view insist that the tariff is not
tax. When an American citizen buys
here an article manufactured abroad he
pays not only the original cost abroad,
but the cost of transportation to this coun-
try and the duty collected at the port of
entry, and when ne uses and consumes
the article he pays the tax imposed by
the Government on it. 1t makes no diff
ference who, whether he or some prior
dealer, handed the money to the customs
officer which was collected for the duty.
Not only this, when an American citizen
buys goods manufactured here, which
are sold daily in competition with goods
of a like character that have similar use
imported from abroad, he has TO pay the
cost OF production thereon, and in many
instances theamountis is equal 10, or nearly
equal to, the rate of duty fixed on the
foreign goods so competing.
If the foreigner and not our citizens
pays the duty, why did we relieve him
from paying millions of tax for us on
sugar? Why not let him continue to pay
the fifty millions?
IF no other good resulted from the Nc
kinley bill, it has Taught the American
people that a tariff is a tax, and a tax
upon the people who consume the articles
upon which it is levied. The day the tax
was removed from sugar the price went
down in all the American markets in an
amount about equal to the duty removed.
On the other hand. when an additional
tax of one and two-tenths cents per
pound was imposed on tim plate, tin-plate
went up III price all over the country.
So on pearl buttons, upon which the duty
was visiD!y increased, and on linen
goods. Whatever may have been the
situation before, the American people
have come to know that the tariff is a
tax, and have dealt with those who in
creased the tax in the last Congress ac-
cordingly, by administering to the au-
thors of the high rates we now have to
pay the greatest rebuke that was ever ad-
ministered to any party in this country,
turning a Republican majority into q
Democratic majority of almost three
tourths. We neither allow our citizens
to buy ships abroad nor build them at
| home. Such are our laws, that if an
American citizen, who cannot build a
ship at home at a rate that enables him to
compete With others in the carrying
trade, goes abroad with American money,
buys ship, mans it with American sea-
men and officers, hoists above it the
American flag, puts on 1t cargo for
American consumers and steers into an
American port, his ship is seized and he
is arrested and not permitted to clear
from the ports of his own country with
his ship again.
''If the same citizen takes the same
money, goes abroad and buys the same
ship, mans it with British Subjects hoists
above it the British flag, loads it with the
same cargo Of coffee and casts anchor in
an American port, his ship is protected
and defended, and the American navy, if
it need be, called out to defend his foreign
flag and his foreign ship. All that Amer
lea requires by her laws is, that if her
citizen buy ship abroad he shall hoist a
foreign flag over it, give the right to
foreign Government to use it against the
United States in time of war under GER
tain circumst tances, and he is secure in his
possession of his ship and the pursuit of
his vocation. There is another provision
of the present law that should be
amended. One allowing those who are
opulent enough and have leisure to 90
abroad to bring in free of duty quantities
of clothes as wearing APPAREL
In closing the speaker said: 1.-THE peo-
pie have resolved. and they will make
that resolution good, that they will have
a reduction in the rate of taxation, or
still further reduction of those in Con-
gress who favor higher taxation. This
battle is on and is on to the finish. On
I,N,,
IN favor OF just taxation; on the other
side its opponents, clamoring for excess
i've and unjust taxation"
In the course of his speech McMillin
was interrupted by RaineS of New York
with a suggestion that the New York
State elections have not been Of a charac-
ter to encourage the Democratic party.
McMillin retorted that the eX-Speaker
on Monday referred to 'the triumphant
march Of truth" That march was en-
phaSiZed by the fact that the gentleman
from Maine tReed) no longer occupied
the chair, but was relegated to the floor,
where he could do nothing but curse and
cry. Laughter The city of the gentle
man from Maine had gone Democratic
the other day. [Applause.l
Reed, who was in the cloakroom when
his name was mentioned, strolled down
the aisle making an apology that he had
not been present, because he knew the
gentleman from Tennessee was speaking.
Laughter.
McMillin replied that he did not care
what the gentleman's reasons were for
his absence.
McMillin spoke for an hour and half,
then Dingley of Maine took the floor to
reply on behalf of the minority of the
Ways and Means Committee. Dingley
ridiculed the Democrats for their failure
to do more than attack three little items
of the Mckinley tariff bill out of $500,
after threats and promises to sweep
every line and word OF this ''unholy
tariff from the statute books and sub
stitute measure of tariff REFORM" from
which shall be eliminated all ''claSs leg
islation," all robbery" ali protection.'
These three little bills" said Dingley,
embrace all the tariff reform the Demo
cratic majority of I40 has offered in re-
demption of all the pledges and promises
made before the last election. Voters
who had been cheated once would like
to know, and they have a right
to be informed, now and here. by the l40
Democratic majority OF this House, eX-
actly what kind of a tariff bill the DEM
ocracy would substitute for the existing
Mckinley tariff. People demand that
this Democratic House shall present such
measure as they profess to be ready to
substitute for the Mckinley tariff before
the election, not after. They ask that
they may have full information of exactly
what is proposed. while they have a
chance TO express an opinion of it, and
not after it is too late. The fact that the
Democratic leaders have not and viii not
present such complete tariff measure is
practically a confession that they dare not
let the people see what they propose to do.
Dingley defended the Mckinley Act
eloquently, and at length argued that the
three bills proposed by the Democratic
majority of the Ways and Means Conn