The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-12-19


with the other industries of the country.
/ TOBACCO LEAF.
! Duties upon imported tobacco leaf suit
! able Tor cigar wrappers, which were so
enormously advanced by the act of 1890,
i have been placed at such figures as, after
careful investigation. were deemed likely to
produce most revenues to the treasury, but
] this object has alone decided the rates. Their
amount Is SO high that no domestic producer
need claim that there is not abundant pro-
tection, and to spare, for his product in them.
BENEFITTING THE FARMER.
"Of the staple agricultural products, in
cludlng meats and provisions, we are such
| large exporters, and must continue to be
such large exporters, that any duties upon
! them are useless for protection and fruitless
Tor revenue, and generally can only be inn
! posed for the purpose of deluding the farm
ers into the belief that they are receiving
some consideration and benefit under the
tariff: although the prices of their products
| are fixed III the worlds market in competi-
tion with like products produced by the
| cheapest labor of the world. For the pro-
/ ducers of our great export staples, which
have fully supplied the home market, must
| overflow and seek large purchasers else
where, the only effect of protective tariff
| Is 10 take away from them one-fourth to one
half OF the products for which they could
| exchange their surplus in the open market,
| should they venture to buy in the market
| them to give like portion of the fruits of
| their labor, when turned into money, by in
| creasing the cost of what they buy in the
| home market. Recognizing that the Ameri
can farmer has been through many years
the patient victim of the protective system;
that he has been induced to support it un-
der the delusive promise that by immense
present sacrifices he was buying for himself
home market, and that this promised home
market is farther from him today than ever
before, we have aimed to secure for him
such relaxatioDs of burdens as will permit
him to enjoy more of the fruits of his own
hard and faithful labor. To the farmers of
the country we have given untaxed agri-
cultural implements and binding twine, and
untaxed cotton for the additional reason
latter case that cotton is the largest
export crop of the country, sold abroad in
composition with the cheap labor of India
and Egypt, believing that it was sufficient
for the private gatherer to follow the farmer
Ii the markets OF his own country and not to
pursue him into all the markets of the
world. AS cotton bagging can be used but
once, we have thought it but just to extend
the drawback system to such bagging made
of jute butts when used upon our exported
cotton, privilege which the exporter of
wheat can already now enjoy, coupled with
the further advantage that the same bags
may be used for successive expectation of
grain. In the schedule of spirits, wine and
other beverages the changes made are slight
and with the view to production of increased
revenue from these very proper sources of
revenue taxation. The duty upon spirituous
liquors is put at double the internal revenue
tax upon the same, while the duty of fifty
cents a gallon on still wines imported in
casks is retained, with proviso limiting the
highest duties on such wines to 100 per cent.
REDUCED DUTIES ON WooLLEN GOODS
THE cotton, flax, hemp and jute schedules,
reductions have been made in accordance
with the general scheme of the bill as here
tofore explained but they are not believed
to be of such marked character as to call
for any special explanation. The placing of
wool upon the free list has Justified very
substantial reduction of the duties on woolen
goods. Of the woolen tariff it may be said,
as was truly said of the woolen tariff of 1928,
that it is the master piece of the ultra
restrictionists and exhibits all the worst
features of the SYSTEM Although the i'm
ports of 1892 show an average duty of ninety
five and eighty 1.-TWO hundredths per cent in
the woolen schedule, it cannot be said that
woolen manufacture has been a hourishing
industry in this country, or that the Ameri-
can wool grower has secured remunerative
prices for his wool. With free wool we
anticipate great benefits to the consumer of
wooden goods, a revival of the wooden in
dustry, such as that which followed the
tariff of 1858, and a steadier and better
market for the American wool grower The
present tariff is not only cruelty exhorbitant
but is so adjusted as to bear most heavily
upon the poorer people,"
A GRADUAL DECREASE.
Illustrations of these inequalities are
given, and the report proceeds:-"The long
exclusion of our woolen manufacturer from
two-thirds of the wool of the world has pre-
vented this great industry from attaining
that vigorous life and independence it might
otherwise have reached, and recognizing the
i
competing foreign fabrics must be somewhat
higher than permanent schedule ought to
be, we have provided for this gradual de-
crease, believing that in a few years our
manufacturers will assert their skill and
ability to manufacture from the worlds
wool. In the carpet schedule we have not
felt'it necessary to adopt this sliding scale,
because that branch of our textile industry
has long been one of the most fourishing of
all our manufactures, has asserted its full
control of the home market, and recently has
been threatening to invade with American
products the markets of other countries
With free carpet wool, we have believed
reductions reported in the bill with
out imperilling its vigorous growth
and prosperous existence. We are said to
consume nearly two-thirds of all the carpets
manufactured in the world. With the
cheapened production due to the removal of
not ourselves producers, there will naturally
be a greatly increased consumption of all
kinds of carpet in our own country. the
largest part of which must inevitably fall to
our own manufacturers to supply.
THE RATE OF TAXATION.
'sThe average rate of duties levied under
the existing law upon the dutiable goods i'm
ported in 1892, was 4S.71 per cent. Had the
duties proposed in the present bill been levied
upon that years importation of dutiable
goods, the average rate, including those we
have transferred to the free list would have
of the present law are really prohibitory, it
ton is; yet 1t is safe to affirm that it is much
disclose. 1t must be understood,
mentioned can only be called closely ap-
proximate, and not nathematically accurate,
but they illustrate the extent Of the reduc-
tlcns proposed by the present bill, and the
relief which it will give to the taxpayer,
and especially to the laborers of this country.
Taking the importations of 1892, the latest
which were accessible to the committee
when its tables were prepared, the new rates
would operate reduction Of nearly one
third of the duties collected under the tariff,
but this great reduction in taxes actually
paid to the government is no measure of the
tightening Of burden to the taxpayers Of the
country. That reduction may be estimated
at several times more than the reduction of
taxes.
THE GREAT BENEFITS.
Such a reform Of tariff must quicken every