The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-07-19
FOREIGN FREE TRADE.
The Tariff as Protection to Domestic
 Manufactures.


 Manufactures.
 In the United States an internal rev enue tax is essentially war tax. Three times the government has had to resort to it, each time to meet the extraordinary expenditures and debts created by war. In each case it pro- tested a purpose to abandon such taxes as soon as the state of the pub lie finances would permit. This spe- cies of tax has always met the most determined opposition from the peo- pie and has always provoked bloody conflict with the public officers. At the close of the revolutionary war an internal tax was adopted, which pre- cipitated the Shay rebellion and was very soon abandoned. Again, at the close of the war of 1872, it was tried, and after few years abandoned as promised.
 The present system was adopted during the civil war, the enormous ex- pense and debts of which compelled a resort to every possible device for rais- ing money and with the most solemn assurances that it should be aban- doned as soon as practicable. This pledge was faithfully kept in view by the republican party while in power. All taxes on occupations, on incomes, on legal and commercial papers, and ou manufactures, except spirits, beer and tohacco, have been repealed. And it is the pledge and the intention of this party to keep its promise and abandon the whole internal tax system as soon as practicable.
 But the government must have money with which to meet it's vast ex- penditures, and this money it must de- rive from some form of taxation. And from the beginning of the government it has been our policy to derive this money from customs duties The tariff is tax on foreign products brought into our country to be sold in our mar kets. It is the only form in which we can make foreigners who enjoy the protection of person and property given them by our laws, and who have the profits of trade in our markets, contribute to the expense of maintain ing them. And so, the second law placed on our statute books, by the first congress of the United States, was a tariff. This tariff was avowedly adopted for the two-fold purpose of af- fording revenue for the treasury and protection to domestic manufa ctures. And the principles of this act, pre- pared by Madison, advocated by Ham, ilton and approved by Washington, is still the republican shibbolith. We are for tariff for revenue, so adjusted as to protect our own manufactures and thus furnish employment for our own labor
 Our political opponents do not stand on the same platform with us In spite of constant denials, in spite of the warnings and opposition of individual leaders in their own ranks, year by year they are growing bolder and bold CT in their advocacy of free trade. This was the undoubted doctrine of the democratic party before the civil war, and back to this position they are steadily drifting as the inevitable re- suit of their fundamental doctrine of state rights. In 1s4s their national platform declared 'that the fruits of the great political triumph of 1s44 have fulfilled the hopes of the democ- racy of the union in the noble i'm pulse given to the cause of free trade by the repeal of the tariff of 1842, and the creation of the more equal and pro- ductive tariff of 1S48." In 1856, they again declared, "the time has come for the people of the United States to declare themselves in favor of free seas and progressive free trade throughout the world" During the rebellion democratic doctrine burst into full flower as applied to revenue systems by provision in the confed- crate constitution prohibiting their congress levying an import duty for the encouragement of any industry. And since the war, each tariff bill they have prepared goes further ard further in the direction of their free trade theories, until now, in the Wilson bill, we are challenged to q choice between the two fundamentally different sys- tems of external and internal taxation. This bill cuts down the tariff, equally regardless of protection and of reve- nue, and proposes to supply the defl- ciency by return to the income tax, and an extension of other internal taxes We are at the forks of the road. It is no longer question of tariff for revenue only, as against a tariff for protection. It is now tariff for de- ficiency and a permanent adoption of internal taxation for revenue. The democratic cry of "tariff reform," "a tariff for revenue only" is demon strated to be insincere. Its true mean ing is, free trade in foreign goods, and internal taxation to supply the revenue"
 A BRAINLESS PARTY.