Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-08-07
$taumto1t Spectator.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST z.
Splendid Work of the Wilson Tariff.

ment's revenues from customs duties,
says the New York Herald, is crafty
ing sign of returning prosperity and
affords vivid demonstration of the
superiority of the new tariff over its
predecessor.
ga grain of fact is worth more than
bushe of argument" as saith an old
provero. And the public, long wearied
by the puerile predictions of calamity
howlers, will read in the solid facts
now published by the Treasury De-
partment overwhelming proof that the
Wilson "free trade' tariff las republi
can partisans SO fondly call it) is, after
all, doing it's work admirably well, and
will, in all probability, ere long yield
ample returns.
During the whole month of July,
just ended, if we exclude Sundays and
the national holiday. the national
revenue from all sources averaged the
handsome sum of $1,127,1 100 a day, of
which amount the customs duties
furnished nearly one-half. Thursday
august y the receipts were 1920, 1884,
of which the customs were $747, 262-
considerably more than one-half. And
all present indications favor the con-
clusion that these fine receipts are not
exceptional or temporary, but are due
to normal and continuing causes, which
must effect still further improvements
in the autumn and winter revenues
and probably carry the aggregate in
come of the government for the new
fiscal year above $360,00O,000.
The customs duties collected in the
eleven months from September 1, 1894,
to July 81, 1895 (inclusive), by the Will
son rates of duty on imports amount to
$145, 752, 800 66. But IN the eleven
months from September 1, 1898, to July
81, 1894 Gncluslve), in which the Nc
Kinley rates were in force, the customs
revenue collected was only $113, AGO.,
745 81. That is, in the eleven months
available for comparison the Wilson
tariff produced for the Treasury $780,,
1865 Is more revenue on imports
than the Mckinley tariff produced.
At it's very emergence from its birth
throes the new tariff gave evidence of
it's superiority to the old. In Septem-
Der, 1S94-the first whole month of its
existence, when all industries were in
disorder-it returned to the Treasury
in customs $15, 564, 900 Sc, against $12,
IA, 626 20 returned by the Mckinley
tariff in September, 1898. In the spring
of 1S93-even before the panic arose or
hard times were felt-the Mckinley
tariff yielded in no month after March
more than $15,41S,657 SO (the customs
receipts for April, 1889, which was a
less sum than the newborn Wilson
tariff yielded in September last, when
it had not gone fully into effect and
trade and business were paralyzed-
But the superiority of the new tariff to
the old, in the point of producing
customs revenue, is most signally
shown by comparing the customs col
lected in the first eleven months of its
life with those collected in the last
eleven months of the Mckinley regime.
The amount collected under the Nc
Kinley tariff was $112, Gal, 1888 81; and
under the Wilson tariff $145, 1852, 800 sc.
The average per month under the Nc
Kinley tariff was $1O,24O,1n "a and
under the Wilson tariff $13, ,210 SO.
1t will be seen from the official gov
eminent statistics that in the eleven
month period of comparison the Will
son tariff yielded to the Treasury $685.
110,447 90 more (nearly thirty per cent
more) of customs rev enue than did the
Mckinley tariff. The average monthly
customs duties collected under the new
tariff exceeded those collected per
month under the Mckinley duties by
$3,010,039 u. At this rate the Wilson
tariff will yield in the first year of its
operation fully $4,000, 900 more in
customs than the Mckinley tariff
yielded in the last year of its existence.
1t is now as clear as a sunbeam that
the Wilson tariff is better revenue
raiser than McKinley's or any tariff
with high protective" rates. If more
revenue is to be raised by customs
duties the Wilson rates must be rather
lowered than raised. Every economist
and every merchant knows that high
tariff rates act in a prohibitory way on
importatiCns, and hence kill the
revenue from customs. Had the origi
nal Wilson bill-prescribing lower
duties than those fixed in the bill by
Senator German and his clique-be- |
come law it would have brought in to
the government much larger revenues.
and the present deficit in the Treasury
would have been much less than it is. |
1t daily becomes more and more like
ly that the Wilson tariff will work the |
same good results accomplished by its
prototype, the low tariff of 1916. Mr.. |
James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years
of Congress-" says
The Wing victory of 1S4s was not sufficient |
ly decisive to warrant any attempt even had |
1S46). General Taylor had been elected with
out subscribing to platform. y More
over, the tariff of 1876 was yielding abundant /
revenue, and the business of the country was |
in a furnishing condition at the time his ad- /
ministration was organized. y The prin-
ciples embodied in the tariff o. 1916 seemed, |
for the time, to be so entirely vindicated and /
approved that resistance to it ceased not only /
among the people, but among the protective l
economists, and even among the manufactur- l
ers to large extent.
What, then, shall be said of the re-
publican 'protectionist" scheme to re-
open the tariff question and increase
the present duties on the pretence of |
increasing the government revenue
from customs? No scheme could be de-
vised that would more surely cut down
the Treasury receipts and swell it's
deficit.
Under the Wilson tariff (which af- |
fords labor and manufacturers the in
estimable boon of free wool and other /