The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1893-11-29
STATED BY WILSON
Some of the Salient Points Of the
New Tariff Bill Touched
Upon
BY the Chairman of the Ways and
Means Committee Of the
House.
Provisions of the Mckinley Bill De-
nounced-H0w the Present One
Differs.

WASHINGTON, Nov. %. Chairman
Wilson has issued the following state
ment In regard to the tariff bill:
The Democratic members of the COM
mittee on ways and means have felt as
none others could feel the momentous
responsibility resting upon them and the
manifest difficulty and delicacy OF the
duty assigned them of forming q tariff
bill for q nation of 10, 1000, 900 of people.
The bill they were called on to reform IL
q vast and l~abyrinthine system of class
taxation, the elimination of 80 years
control of the taxing power by a
few great interests, gathering into
their. train a host of petty
toll gathering. 1t was carefully framed
to prevent, as long as possible, what its
, author called ''any monkeying with the
tariff" by which he meant any success
full effort of the people to undo or to
lessen the bounties which its beneficiaries
were permitted to write therein, in their
own words and their own figures.
wrong Kind of q Free List.
1t transferred to the free list proper
and fruitful revenue articles where
most Of the taxes paid by the people
were received by the government, and
greatly increased the rates of those
articles where all or most Of the taxes
paid by the people went into private
Golfers. And Ii was bolstered about by
Emany defenses, chief among which are a
swept and garnisheed treasury and q
swollen and colossal scale Of permanent
expenditures. Such are the condi-
lions that confronted us ut the
threshold of our work. The COM
mittee have welcomed information
and counsel from every trustw orthy
source, and while they do not expect
their bill to escape just criticism, in all
of its details. they do present it TO the
country as the result of months of pa
tient, anxious toll, and of an honest de-
sire to discharge their duty. purged of all
faint of local and personal favoritism or
prejudice.
i It's Main Features Are Two:
First-The adoption wherever it
seemed practicable of adj valorem, in
stead Of specific duties.
Secondly-The freeing from taxes of
those great materials of industry that lie
at the basis of production.
Specific rates of duty are Objectionable
for these reasons: They frequently con-
ceal q rate of taxation too enormous to
be submitted to if exposed to ad valorem
terms as the duty of 8 cents a hundred
pounds on salt in bulk, which amounts
g. ,vn On v1a~ .an4 ~ , o1r~~x. $1,000
sary of life. They always bore heavily
ON the common articles used by the
masses and lightly on the
expensive articles consumed by the
rich, IS q tax of thirty dollars
on all houses would be little or nothing
ON the great mansion and very high on
the humble home. And, contrary tc
common belief, specific duties lead te
greater frauds in administration, foi
( counting and weighing at the custom
, house are done by the cheapest and
most easily corrupted labor, while ad
valorem rates are assessed by the bes'
, paid and responsible appraisers.
h Bodies. Innovation
of the bill is its large free list of the raw
materials. Taxes upon productions ar,
: double wrongs. They gather and cumu
! late on the consumers of the finished
products. They hurt labor by narrow
ing the market for what it produces
Coal and iron are the foundations o
. modern industry. Material progress i
measured by the amount of their con
sumption. No other country cal
Y~r~&1 fhay. na nhtr4IarNfx- ~ an
cheaply as we can. No possibl
"a competition can interfere with our ow-
producers a few miles in the Interior c
u the country. Remoteness from from til
d sources of supply is in itself CROUCH di:
advantage to any section of tn. countr,
without further burdens in tariff take
" With releases from taxes on their ma
~ t~erials,
10 There La No Limit
to the growth of our foreign trade. TIL
will more than compensate the hon
producers of raw material, who. tar
10 or no tariff, control all the interior
"A the country, from an apprehended 10
IL of markets anywhere along the seaboar
Its i~ncalculable advantage TO labor
h apparent. In every great Ii
of manufactures We can produ
~ in six months to nine months enough
our home market. We can get rid
az ovr surplus only by foreign trade.
A., long as we have taxes on the materi
tha of industry we cannot build up Il
~. trade. hence the other alternative, tru
a. TO keep down production to the no
ara market.
The w~orkingman Can See
-ar whether his interest Is with a syst
in that represses production and rohs |
OF employment, or with a system I
gives natural and healthy play to |
duction and emancipates him fl
. IN trusts and like combinations of CAPT
the AS TO the details of the bill, | J
briefly recapitulate the salient char
had en- the several schedules. In the cher
'ars. try schedule we have transferred 10
hese free list quite a number of articles I
the in manufacturing. the most impor
ara q of which is snlphnric acid, one of
mites commodities Of all chemical indus
nd il Ms dufy ON eaSfnr pil il reduced 4