Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-12-02
THE NEW TARIFF BILL.

|
issued the following statement in
regard to the tariff reform bill made
public on Monday of this week"
The Democratic members of the
Committeeon Ways and Means have
felt, as none others could feel, the
momentous responsibility resting
upon them. and the magnitude, diff
ficulty and delicacy of the duty as
signed them of framing the tariff
bill for n nation of 70y000.0W of peo-
pie.
The bill they were called on to re-
form is a vast and labyrinthine sys-
tenn of class taxation, the culmina-
ton of thirty years control of the
taxing power by few greatinterests
gathering into their train host of
petty toll gathering. twas carefully
framed to prevent, as long as pos
sible, what its author called "any
monkeyingwith the ff,"by which
he meant any successful effort of
the people to undo or lessen the
bountics which its beneficiaries
were permitted to write therein, in
their own words, and their own fig
ures. 1t transferred to the free list
proper and fruitful venue articles
where most of the taxes paid by the
people were received by their move
ment. and greatly increased the
rates of these articles, where all or
most of the taxes paid by the peo-
pie went into private Golfers. And
it was boistered about by many de-
lenses. chief among which are a
swept and garnisheed treasury and a
swollen and colossal scale of per-
manent expenditures.
Such are the conditions that con-
fronted us at the threshold of our
work. The committee has welcomed
information and counsel from every
trustworthy source, and while it
does not expect it's bill to escape
just criticism in all its details, it
presents it to the country as the re-
suit of months of patient, anxious
toll, and of an honest desire to dis
charge its duty, purged of all faint
of local and personal favoritism or
prejudice.
Its main features are two: First,
the adoption, wherever it seemed
practicable, of adj valorem instead
of specific duties; secondly, the
freeing from taxes of those great
materials of industry that lie at the
base of production.
Specific rates of duty are objec-
tionable for these reasons: They fire.
quently conceal rate of taxation
too enormous to be submitted to if
exposed in adj valorem terms as the
duty of eight cents per 100 pounds
on salt in bulk, which amounts to
over so per cent on common ne
cessity of life. They always bear
heavily on the common article used
by the masses and slightly on the
expensive article consumed by the
rich, as a tax of $50 on all houses
would be nothing on the great man.
sions and very high on the humble
home. And contrary to common
belief specific duties lead to greater
frauds in administration, for count
ing and weighing at the custom
house is done by the cheapest and
easily corrupted labor while adj va
loren rates are assessed by the best
paid and most responsible apprais-
ers. The ad valorem system has
worked well in practice, is essenti-
ally the fair system, because it is a
tax upon the actual value of an ar
ticle, and was declared by Mr.. Clay
to be in theory and accord
ing to every sound principle of JUS
tice entitled to the preference, and
by long trial.
The boldest innovation of the bill
is it's large free list of the raw ma
terials. As to details of the bill, l
will briefly recapitulate the salient