The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1894-05-26
PROVO CITY.
THE PENDING TARIFF BILL.

The pending tariff bill has passed
through many close places since it was
passed by the house and sent to try its
fate in the senate. 1t is equally certain
that many more vicssititudes lie in
wait for It at every possible turn n its
future course, and just what its ulti-
mate fate is to be no one can now C on
lecture. At the present moment it re-
sembles the bill Mr.. Wilson penned,
about as much as does a Chinese junk,
q stately New England clipper ship OF
the olden ante bellum days. Yet even
now passed without the change OF a
single word, it would represent
vast improvements great lunge ahead.
a long stride in the march toward re-
form. Great complaint is made that
time is being consumed and business
is unsettled. That is true, and the de-
lay grows serious in the light of the
unsettled and unsettling conditions of
trade now prevailing. But it is far
better to 90 slow now than to stop after
years trial OF faulty enactment to
reconstruct or repeal it. The Nc
Kinley bill has not seen its fifth birth
day yet and here We are going through
the same throes in the attempt to
frame better law on this all import.
ant and weightY subject. If the dem
ocratic idea of tariff is correct, Mr..
McKinley's idea confessedly was not
then surely we can afford to take time
10 evolve from the experience and
theories of the past the best
that is possible in this direction. Our
people complain because of the delay,
but for all that we cannot afford
to spoil all by an incon-
siderate and dangerous haste. We
believe with German that no more
waste of time has occurred than was
natural to a measure of such vast i'm.
portance and of such infinite COM
plexity as a general tariff law, and one,
too, which completely upsets our whole
commercial system which has pre-
ceeded the Mckinley law.
Let its aggregate of reduction be
what it may, the minimum of salts
faction, only, will result, and after its
adoption, years and years of trial will
be necessary to determine the worth of
the measure. Our merchants, both i'm
Porters and exporters, viii ree1s>re SiIllo
20 adjust themselves TO the new prin-
iples of trade which the bill makes it
necessary TO adopt. But the euualiz
ing of trade possibilities will, it is
thought, justify all the delay as well
as the resultant hsrdships. However,
there are more Immediately pressing
and vital measures to be considered as
well. These are in the nature of en-
abling acts and policies necessary to
be considered because of the unset
tied and rapidly changing conditions
of international commerce. If the
prevailing hard times affected
only the United States it woulu still be
complicated enough. But the same
bIlght which crlpples us and fills the
land with hardshIps and the wrecks of
former prosperity, prevail the world
over. In the face of this general dis
tress we find our difficulties increased a
thousand fOld, We, therefore, are
compelled to cultivate the grace of pa
tience and with undiminished faith in
the old party and its time honored
principles and leaders await the com
pletlon of the work which, if it is not
all we had hoped for, is far better than
not to have made one honest effort to
return to the simpler, fairer and more
reasonable policies of the fathers of |
that lordly principle of tariff for reve-
nue. only.