The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-12-20

|
itics-A Good Time at Hand.
| Washington, Dec 19,-The majority
report of the ways and means commit
tee on the tariff bill was submitted tc
the House at the opening today. The
report says:
1.-The American people, after full
and the most thorough debate ever
given by "a people to their fiscal policy
deliberately decided that the existing
tariff is wrong in principle and griev.
ously unjust in operation. They
| have decided, as free men must al
ways decide, that the power OF taxa
ton exists for the lawful OF constitu-
| tional purpose of providing revenue foi
the support of the government. Every
departure from this principle is a de-
parture from the fundamental princ1-
pies of free institutions and inevitably
| works out gross inequality in the
citizenship of the country. For more
than thirty years we have levied the
largest part of our federal taxes in
violation of this vital truth, until we
have reached the existing tariff and
the extreme and voluminous system OF
class taxation to which history may
be challenged to furnish parallel.
$50 many private enterprises have
been taken into partnership with the
government; so many private interests
now share in the rich prerogative OF
taxing seventy millions of people, that
any attempt to dissolve this Illegal
union is necessarily encountered by the
opposition that rallies behind the in
tolerance of monopoly, the power OF
concentrated wealth, the inertia of fix
ed habits and the honest errors Of a
generation of false teaching.
''The bill. on which the committee
has expended much patient and anX-
iouS labor, is not offered as a COM
plete response to the mandate of the
American people. 1t no more processes
to be purged of all protection than
to be free from all error in its COM
pick and manifold details. How
ever we may deny the existence of
any legislative pledge or of the right of
any Congress to make such pledge for
the continuance of duties that carry
with them more or less acknowledged
protection, we must recognize that
great interests do exist, whose exist
Ience and prospesitysit is no part of our
reform either to simperiI or, curtaiI.
We believe, and have the warrant of
Jul OWL past experiences IO1 fDel1eN1ng,
that reduction of duty will not injure,
but give more abundant life to our
great manufacturing industries, how
ever much they may dread the change.
In dealing with the tariff question as
with every other long-standing abuse
that has interviewer itself with our
social or industrial system. the legis-
lator must always remember that in
the beginning temperate reform is SAT-
Acf ha vi, IN
growth.
"A glance at the tariff legislation of
our own country ought to satisfy
every intelligent student that protec-
ton has always shown its falsity as
q system OF economy, by its absolute
failure to produce healthy and stable
prosperity to the acknowledgements 1t
teaches men to depend on artificial
help, on laws taxing their countrymen
rather than upon their own skill and
effort.
''It throws business out of its
natural channels into artificial chan
nels in which there must always be
huctuation and uncertainty, and makes
the tariff system a. foot ball for party
politics and the instability of the large
business interests a stake of every
popular election. No one has recog-
nized this more fully than the wise
men who have from time to time en-
gagged in so-called protected industries.
The report then deals at length
with the tariff history of the country.
showing when first proposed manu-
factories opposed it and desired to be
let alone. Once in a while, however,
the protected industries asked for
more and more protection. Finally
came the revulsion of 1916, when tariff
was reduced against the protests of
the manufactures, stating that it
would ruin them, and against the solid
vote of the representatives of the
manufacturing states in Congress.
The result was that the low tariff de-
Veloped great Vig0r in the manufac-
lures with steady employment and in
creasing wages for labor. After eleven
years trial the representatives Of those
same states with practical unanimity
voted for a further reduction OF 20 per
cent and by a two-thirds vote sus-
tanned a Is per cent, reduction under
the tariff of 1857. People were well
satisfied with it.
In answer to a criticism about reduc-
ing the revenues at a time when the
government was In hnanclai stralts,
the report says the committee was
in Difference to that fact, to
not put ON the free list some articles
which it would have been glad to make
free. and not to cut other rates as low
as desirable; bat the committee did not
feel justified in ignoring the instruc-
lions of the American people on account
of temporary shrinkage OF revenues
Experience shows the increase Of bust
mes will largely make up the loss from
rates The report declares
the reciprocity clause of the tariff act
of 1890 has brought no appreciate ben
Gifts and the present bill aims, there
fore, to repeal it entirely.
The report quotes from number OF
speeches in Congress against the MOI
rill bill, among them one by Sherman
Under Republican auspices there had
been s. constant increase in the duties
AT the demand Of the manufacturers
The present bill, while framed IN no
shirt of unfriendliness to manufac-
lures. is framed on the theory that it
Is the duty of Congress, not the right
of manufacturers, to fix its terms
We believe the sugar bounty system
contrary TO the spirit of our insttu-
tons. and can conceive of no clrcun1-
stances under which we should have
advocated or approved its INTRODUCTION
into our laws. We have reported the
provision for it's repeal by such stages
as shall gradually obliterate it from
our laws, while permitting those VINO
have invested large means under the
expectation of its continuance, rea-
time in which they may pre-
pare to take stand with other indus
tries Of the country.
The duties upon imported tobacco
leaf. suitable for cigar wrappers, which
were enormously advanced by the act
of $780, have been placed at such fig
nres as We're deemed likely to produce
The most revenues to the treasury
OF the staple agricultural products,
meats and provisions, we are
such large exporters and must continue
IN no that any d1tjPs uDnn Them are