The Coconino weekly sun., 1893-12-28
MINORITY REPORT.
views of Republican Members on
 the Wilson Bill.
,,,,ority of the Ways and Means Com- nittee Dissent from Proposed TarIff ChanGes-Tho Facts
 Plainly stated.

4b, minority members of the ways and ,,,ans committee on the tariff bill was submitted to the house yesterday. The srst part of the report, discussing the hill generally, was prepared by eX- sneaker Reed. The other members of tb, minority, MessrS. Burrows, Payne, Dal2eu, Hopkins and Greer, prepared thr portion of the report dealing with .nrrial features. The report says: ..
 The most surprising thing about this bill vnlc h we will treat of in detail somewhat Inter. is the fact that this proposition to raise revenue will lower the revenue of this country ,-lyOl 100 below the revenue of 1894 which was ,,rIv s.OILOJO above ou" expenses. This and rb, oth r fact tr at by this bill the larger part ,f fha burden Oi taxation is transferred from forctgucrs and brought to our own r,rt1rus should always be kept in mind during the discussion H d the commit ice in making what the chairman on the floor of the house called political bill, fol- lowed the plain, uncompromising declaration O. the party which they represent, and abol. ishcI protection, giving us a tarin for revenue onIy our task in commenting upon the result Of the committees efforts would have been more simple The bill would then have been ,tratghIforward, manly attempt to carry out pledges and would have placed in issue two great principles and have led to a clear and comprchensib,e discussion
 So far. however, have the committee departed from the demands of the national convention that we should have been much tempted to bor- TOW phrase from their own platform and des. iguate the bill us a "cowardlY make shift" were it not that the results have been already 100 serious for mere epilhets.
 S sch phrase, even thus sanctioned, would be ou, Of place in a discussion which involves so much importance to all classes Of citizens Its,ll however, remains fact that the bill presented can in no way be justified by people claiming 10 have obtained possession of all branches of lhe government upon distinct prouis, which they now distinctly repudiate.
 II it should be said these pledges, -olemnly made on yea and nay vote, after full discus. sion were not intended for action then The breaking Of the pledges has the additional dis advantage Of premedtatou. If subsequent events, and they had been numerous enough and weighty enough 10 starte the whole coun- try, have convinced ths committee that th ,demo- cratic platform is as utterly wrong and inde- fansible as history will knoS it to be, then it Is great misfortune to this country that the committee did not have the courage to openly abandon tho false doctrine and leave the cOun. try undisturbed so it might convalesce from the shock of its great mistake But he committee, instead of proceeding in its great work Of abolishing protection and pre-. serving the people from the load of taxation, which they have always averred was the result Ot protection, has presented a bill which is only another tarir tinkering bll, the like of which has distgrbed the conditions of business so many times the last thirty years.
 l. is great misfortune that such is the case, for had the bill been for reN enue only, in the only sense possible for the term, the people of the country might have seen at one glance whether they desired the one policy or the other, and the ques tiOn might have been settled once for all, and the country might have at tained 10 that repose, stability and certainty which our business prosperity so much needs
 This other and fresher plan has all the faults which the framers of this bill cherCed upon the old and very few Of it's virtues IL Is open to all inc derisiye and harsh epithets which the present system used to be overwhelmed It taxes the people with tarin tax it creates, or rather proposes to maintain, what they used to call privileged classes and is defe nded by it's tbOrs with arguments and expressions strange ly like those which they used so freely to de- nounce A manufacturer is told the duty will protect him, and his claims are lis tened 10 on that basis and are argued for him on that basis just as in lhe brave days of old
 The democratic district attorney Of the northern district Of New York comes down. as be had right to- and declares that from pro- lection standpoint, barley and malt cannot go together under the same ad valorem, and promptly the committee raises the tarin taxes from 25 per cent to 31, to protect the manu facturer, although it must lessen the revenue So with the cause of boards, planed, tongued and grOoVed, and although the lumber passes in the same plant from the saws 10 the planers the work of the men who manage saws is unprotected, while the work of the men at the planes is shielded by tarii These are but in . stances of corrections made, where the ear of the mmittee could be had, and are keys to tUe notions on which the bill was formed
 The new plan also involves a new method of encOur iging manufacturers by giving them what are called free raw materials, so that what goes into the mill pays no taxes and what goes into consumption pays all the taxes The manufacturers have no taxes on what they buy and the people the equivalent of taxes on all they purchase IL unfortunately happens also that free raw material" Is an elastic term and what is one mans free raw material is another mans finished product
 All the objections so often urged by the dem. ocrats against the existing system lie against this bill If the present system be robbery" as these men have reiterated and reiterated, the proposed system is precisely the same IL is true lhe consumer will no longer ply tribute to the western farmer for the wool but New England and other manufacturers are still au' hOrized to lay tribute on the people of the United States who must pay, so these men have always said. 90, 70 and 45 per cent to the manu. facturer on every yard of woolens and WOrStedS, while the country will only receive, by way of revenue, lessened sum unless in creased impOrtations signalizc tho ueath of American production
 Whatever can be said of the people of the United States, nothing can be more truly said than that the distribution of the proceeds Of united labor and capital has been among them more even and fair than anywhere else on earth There have been great a cumulations Of capital necessary for the worlds develop, ment all over the universe, but in the United States this has been accompanied bv the near est approach to general distribution that the world has ever seen. This has not been all owing to the tarin, but the tarir has been the foundation of it Labor organi' cations have played great and useful part in this distribution Men in general who employ labor are no more naturally dis posed to pay high wages under tarif than those who exploit the laboring man under free trade, but the tarir, by giving steady employ mcnL under the influence of a sure market by establishing the organization of industry under the factory system, has gi en to organized labor the material to work pon. the fund of which it has demanded distribution-a fund s great that 1t could never have been equaled, or even approach d in the comparatively isolated life which the unprotected industries, taken alone, would have given us as people,
 Protection has established the clusters oi great manufacturing and working centers, which have viven railroads the possibility oi