The broad ax., 1896-03-07
important events In American annals
connected with the relations Of our gov
eminent to foreign powers.
a rart6 Jeremiad.

n
A Tariff Jersmiad.
From the Chicago Chronicle: The
treasury department has issued q re-
port on our foreign commerce for 1872
which fills the breasts Of republican ca
lamity walters with poignant distress.
One OF these distressed partisans teie-
graphs his paper from washington
that, according to this report, the
democratic tariff law, which PROGRESSED
to give the people Of the country their
goods free from tariff exactions, actu-
ally collected duty on 81 per cent OF the
goods which were brought into the
country, while the Mckinley law In It's
last fiscal year collected duty only on
IL per cent Of the goods brought In"
This implies that the new law Is
diabollcal continuance which, while
seeming to reduce the taxes, In fact In
creases them. That is the burden OF
the lamentation, II It is not altogether
senseless. And the implication Is
strengthened when the mourner
changes his form OF words and says
that under the Mckinley law the peo-
pie got practically two-thirds Of their
imported goods free Of duty, while un-
der the Wilson law they are getting
less than half free Of duty. II one could
overcome the arithmetical difficulty In
the conceiving of So per cent as equiva-
lent to two-thirds he would infer that
the democrats had been wickedly and
maliciously heaping taxes on imports
while pretending to take OF the taxes.
But what have we here? One Jere-
miah proceeds to say: THE increase
o. Importation OF dutiable goods Is
something enormous, while the free i'm
portations have not increased. The
total importation OF dutiable goods dur
ing 1895 was s416,353,S57. while the
total importation OF goods paying duty
IN the last fiscal year Of the Mckinley
law amounted to only s257, 645. 703.
Thus the new law Is nearly doubling
the amount of dutiable goods brought
into the country, but giving the people
no more free importations than did the
Mckinley law"
So II appears when we come down 20
figures that the difference In the pro-
portion Of dutiable to free goods is due
not to transferring goods from the lat
ter category to the former, but to an
increase in the importation Of dutiable
goods. Why the increase? Plainly be-
cause the dutiable goods are not taxed
so outrageously as they were under the
Mckinley law. With the burden Of
taxation lifted the people can buy more
and enjoy more. And this remark ap-
plies no more to imported goods than
to like goods OF domestic production.
The same cause which has reduced the
prices of the former has equally re-
duced the prices OF the latter. The peo-
pie are able to consume and enjoy more
Of both foreign and domestic goods.
And the relief from burden on domes-
tic goods Is fully three times as great
as the relief from burden on foreign
goods, because the people consume
fully three times the quantity Of do
nestle goods as they do Of competing
foreign goods.
But let us not claim too much for the
new law because the Washington Jere-
miah invites us to do so with his mis-
leading figures. He compares the du-
table imports in 1895 with the dutiable
imports during the last fiscal year Of
the Mckinley law-1S94-but he omits
to state that the dutiable imports in
1894 were exceptionally low-lower, in
iect, than they had been for more than
4 quarter Of a century. The following
statement Of the value Of dutiable i'm
ports each year, beginning with the
fiscal year 1886 and ending with the
year 1895. will show how mis-
leading the comparison is:
tt