Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-06-16

imnorted articles that come IN Olroct
cfsmpetftion with home industries. and
20 adjusts the rates that such competing
foreign productions cannot be placed
mon the home markets at prices less
than the fair and reasonable home mar
ket price
By this means the high wages OF our
home laborers are maintained and neeo
not be reduced to the low level OF cheap
foreign labor, and under this tariff arti-
Giles of necessity for the common people
in their household economy and whichl
cannot be raised or produced prontaoiy
ut home are admitted free OF duty SUCH
as tea, coffee, sugar. etc.
Duties are the specific sums OF moneys
or the rate per cent that is levied upon
the goods passing through the custom
house. MANY use the term tariff
synonymously with duty" but lncor-
rectly.)
There are two kinds of duties:
/. Specific. 2. Ad valorem.
Aspecific duty is a fixed sum of money
to be paid upon each yard, ton, hun
dred. etc. Observation-Disclosures pays q
spea;fic duty of 25 cents bushel with
out reference to its market value.
An ad valorem duty is stated per
cent that is levied upon the value OF the
goods imported. Illustration-The duty
on certain manufactures of silk is 50
per cent of their foreign value.
A very strong objection to an ad va
iorem duty is the opportunity it opens
to fraud and dishonesty by undervalua-
ton of the goods imported.
Both of these duties are sometimes
combined on the same article.
Wilton carpets pay
specific duty of go cents square yard
and an ad valorem of 40 per cent on
their value.
Protection is that economic system
which requires that its sufficient duties
shall be levied only upon such commod-
tiles besides mere luxuries) as we are
capable of producing in economy and
quantity to regulate prices in the home
market ID. H. Rice.
Prior to 1883 we imported all our
steel wire nails. The duty was cent
pound, and the nails cost us to cents
a pound. In 1883 the duty was raised
to 4 cents pound, and in 1891 we made
over A, 900, 900 kegs and exported them
to all parts of the world, and our peo-
pie could buy them at about 2 cents a
pound.
Free trade is dream, a vagary, a
theory, which, if it could be material
lied, would abolish all tariff duties and
remove all custom houses from our from
tiers and let every nation into our mar
kets as freely as the air comes in, but
such system has never been used OF
adopted between or among civilized ma
lions.
1t is taught nowhere except in col
leges by theorists and doctrinaires, and
is absolutely impracticable.
Bounties are gifts or rewards from
the general government for services
which are or will be for the public bene-
fit, and without which assistance GER
tain industries and lines of business
could not otherwise be established.
Observation-Disclosures the Mckinley
tS1klll tllO uuly SuSdlS NAIiSAk Aittt
been about 2 cents pound, was all
taken off, and sugar was admitted free,
gain to the country of over $50, 000,-
0OO By that act we should have utter
ly destroyed all the sugar planters Of the
country if the law had not provided a
bounty of 2 cents pound on all theil
production, amounting to 50, 900, 900.
We thus saved a large and growing in
dustry, and after paying the bounty had
q net gain Of SOL, 900, 900.
Subsidies are similar gifts to enable
our people to build and operate steam
ships and other vessels, and so carry our
own mails and our own merchandise,
instead of relying upon other nations to
do it for us, to our great loss and dis
advantage.
Reciprocity is an arrangement or
agreement between our own nation and
another nation by which we agree to
admit free of duty certain articles which
we need, but which we cannot raise or
produce here, and in return the other
nation admits to its ports free of duty
certain articles which we produce and
which they need, but cannot produce Ill
their own land.
Illustration-Brazil produces great
quantities of coffee and rubber. but does
not produce flour nor machinery. We
cannot produce coffee and rubber, but
we have surplus of flour and machin.
cry. We admit free of duty their coffee
and rubber, and they admit free of duty
our -four and machinery, and both ma
tons are benefited, their home produc-
lions are greatly increased, their mar
kets enlarged. and the laborers of each
country find additional work and i'm
droved wages at home.