St. Paul daily globe., 1893-03-31
He Asserts That No Good
Grounds Exist for Spe-
cific Duties.
They Fall Very Heavily on the
Poor andsLightly on
the Rich. \
Temptation to Undervalua-
tion--Ad Valorem Duties
Sound in Theory. =

subject of tariff reform is as follows:
NEW YORK, March l.-Dear Sir: One
of the most important questions to be
decided in framing tariff-prObably
the most important question of mere
method-is: Shall duties be specific or
ad va1orem. or little of both? In other
words, shall taxes on goods be proper
toned to their value or to their weight
and measure?
The answers of all taX-eaters to this
question are practically unanimous.
Public officials whose duty it is to collect
taxes prefer specific duties, because it is
vastly easier to weigh goods and charge
so much a pound than 1T is to ascertain
their true value and assess them in pro-
portion to that. Protected manufact-
urers prefer specific duties, because it is
easy, III this manner, to tax the people
100 per cent for private gain in cases
where so per cent openly levied on
values would not be tolerated. They
prefer such duties because, as we shall
presently show, these duties have
self-acting power of constantly-increas-
ing taxation, until, after the lapse of a
few years, such duties become pro-
hibitory and secure to the domestic
manufacturer monopoly, so that In
multitudeS of cases. that which was in
tended as a proper revenue duty, and
was such when enacted, soon produces
no revenue to the public, while it eX
tOrts enormous tribute from the masses
for the benefit of a small class OF capi-
taliStS.
They prefer specific duties, for tho
very IesOn which should make such
duties crime-becaue they fall more
heavily upon artclesused by the poor
than upon those used by the rich. Not
that these gentlemen have any ami
mostly toward the poor, or any desire
TO increase the amount which the poor
shall pay to the government. They
have no such unbusiness-like motives.
But experience has taught them that
the poorer classes afford a market vastly
more valuable, taken altogether, than
any which can be found among the
rich, whose number Is so small as t o
make their consuming power, as class,
unimportant to most manufacturers.
Specific duties, under which the poor
mans coat and hat are taxed precisely
as much as those of the rich man, worth
five times as much, inevitably prohibit
ilnportatiOns of goods suitable for the
poor, and thus give to the home manu-
facturerS monopoly of their supply.
No wonder that these manufacturers
are enthusiastic advocates of specific
duties.
Many importers, however, are advo-
Gates of the same system for different
reasons. 1t is, undoubtedly, difficult to
ascertain the precise values of many
articles, and, therefore, honest and con-
ScientiOuS importers often find that, un-
der a system of heavy ad valorem
duties, their dishonest rivals. by making
a few false oaths as to value, pay less
tax upon the same articles, and so can
undersell them. Severe penalties are
imposed for such offenses, but so long
as the reward of crime is great such
risks will be taken.
None of these reasons, however, suf-
fees to justify specific duties. The
ease and convenience of public servants
are not to be considered for moment
against the demands of justice and
equal rights. The reasons why pro-
tected manufacturers prefer such
duties are the very reasons why such
duties should not be tolerated. There
is no respectable argument in favor of
specific duties except that which is
assigned by importers-the danger Of
undervaluation and the consequent ad-
VantageS of dishonest competition in
trade.
Let us begin, then, with this argu-
ment. We are practicaI men, and there
fore proceed to practical test. The
first and all-sufficieht answer to the ar
gument for specific duties, as neceS-
sity to prevent fraud. is that the expert
ence of eighty years of effort in this di-
rontinO that If ic i'm llQ tn
prevent such frauds by such means.
For more than sixty of the last eighty
years the national government has been
in the hands of men who have taxed
their ingenuity to devise specific duties
as means of preventing fraud, and the
only result has been continual in
crease in the clamOr about fraud, and a
development of new frauds under Spe-
cifc duties themselves.
Moreover, at the end of all this inces-
SAINT effort to make duties specific, when
twenty different congresses have sought
with intense zeal to abolish all ad val
orem duties, so far as they desired to do
it, what do we find? Far more than
one-third of all the revenue collected
from ad valorem duties, and more than
half of all enumerated articles admitted
ad valorem rates! The tariff of 1883
was the eliminating effort of the spe-
citic fanatics; and yet 3S per cent of all
the revenue under that act was col
lected on ad valOrems, while only $50
articles were subjected to purely spe
cific rates, against 7S9 which were duti-
able ad valorem in whole or in part. A
clear majority was taxed upon purely
ad valorem basis.
Such an example of dead failure af-
fOrdS an excellent instance for the ap-
plication of the old rule: THAT which
never was never out to be-"
Let us now consider the reasons for
uniform ad valorem system.
4 In the first place, it has existed once,
and therefore it can exist again. 1t was
in force from 1916 to 1861, and it worked
better than any other system ever put
into practice.
1t is universally conceded to be sound
in theory and absolutely j uSt in princi-
pie. If all values were correctly stated,
taxation upon that basis would be
ideally perfect. No one proposes for
moment to tax every house alike, or to
tax land by the square foot, instead of
the market value. Every intelligent
man knows that assessors make gross
errors in valuations of real estate, but
no human being proposes to interfere
taxation. The idea of taxing the poor
mans acre in Kansas, worth $50, as
much as the rich mans acre in New
York city, worth $2.000,000 would be so
monstrous that no one would venture to
mention it. Yet the principle is pre-
cisely the same with that which taxes a
yard of cloth worth so cents as much as
another yard worth S5.
Specific duties always and inevitably
b9Br very heavily upon the poor, and
very lightly upon the rich. This is
their conclusive condemnation. No
matter what may be the loss of the gov
ernment by evasions of taxes--no mat
ter what may be the loss of honest i'm
porters by the frauds of their rivals
nothing can Justify the wholesale rob-
berry of the poorer classes, which is in
herent in every system of tax by mere
weight or measure.
So powerful is this consideration that
even the unScrupulOu5 congress of 1890
did not dare entirely to disregard it.
They did as all previous congresses
have done-they combined all the in
iquities of both the specific and the ad
valorem systems. They piled up heavy
taxes per pound or yard to make the
AZ