Semi=weekly graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1895-1902, 1897-05-19


make the bill nearly as good as he de-
sired to make it, and the bill as finally
passed was not nearly as good as when
it first passed the house. 1t was, how
ever, great Improvement upon the Nc
Kinley bill and is a model as compared
with the Dingley monstrosity. We
quote the following from Mr.. Wilson s
criticism Of the Mckinley and Dingley
bills III a recent number Of the New
York Herald:
These bills are so nearly identical in
! general structure and particular items,
excepting as to tho sugar schedule, that
it may be well TO consider the effect Of
the first bill on the revenue Of the eoun-
| try. Both bills are vast and voluminous
schemes of class taxation, the production
of public revenue being an incident and
entirely subordinate to the purpose Of
taxing all the American people for the
| benefit of small part Of the people.
The protectionist has but one remedy,
which he applies whether the revenue
be redundant or deficient If times are
prosperous and more money than is
needed pours into the treasury, he in
creases taxes by scheme that turns
the larger part of their avails into pri-
! yate pockets, and this reduces public
revenue. If times are depressed and less
money than is needed pours into the
| treasury, he sei2ss the pretext of in
creasing public revenues by adding
| enormously to tho amount of private ex-
action.
The act of 1890, whatever its other
effects, did reduce revenue. From a
large surplus it swept US headlong to a
deficiency, although it weighted the
people with heavier taxes and although
another law, passed in July, 1890,
turned into the treasury as a part of the
| general assets to be used for paying ex-
penditures q trust fund of more than
500, 900, GOO which belonged to the ma
tional banks and had always been held
for the redemption of their notes.
Even before the Harrison administra-
ton ended we should have been CON
fronted with large deficiency but for
the use of this trust fund and the fur
Their fact that Secretary Foster, by a
change of bookkeeping, added to the
treasury balance $40, 900, 900 of token
and subsidiary coin not before treated
as treasury asset. With these extraor-
binary additions, even, we wound up the
fiscal year June 80, 1898, with a sur
plus of only $2,341 GA as against a
surplus for the fiscal year June 30,
1890, Of over $50, geo before the
above trust fund and subsidiary coin
were touched. And during the fiscal
year ended juno 80, 1894, through all
of which tho Mckinley bill was in force,
expenditures exceeded the revenues to
the amount of 500, 500, 260, notwith-
standing the fact that the expenditures
of the government were $15, 952, GA
less than in the preceding year.
This statement shows how absurd and
groundless is the claim constantly made
by the protectionists that recent deficits
in revenue are due to the substitution
of the existing tariff for the Mckinley
bill Nothing is more certain than that
if the bill had been in force during the
last three years the annual deficit would
have been immensely swollen, while the
people in q season of depression and
hard times would have staggered under
much heavier burdens of taxation. Even
in this disastrous period, customs duties
under the existing law have increased
from less than 1882, 600, 600 in 1894,
the last year of the Mckinley bill, to
even $152, 600, 900 in 1895 and to over
$160, 600, 600 in 1896.
In the sugar schedule alone the bal
ance III favor of the existing law is
about 500, 600, goo. The customs rcve-
nue. reached nearly sac, coo, 600, scarce
" any of which would have been re-
ceivable under the Mckinley bill
That the Dingley bill, present condi-
lions considered, is the most ultra pro-
teotive tariff ever proposed to be enact
ed in this country plainly appears from
Chairman Dingley's statement that if
levied on the importations of the last
fiscal year it would have increased the
revenue $112, 600, 000-that is to say, it
would have gathered from an importa-
tion of $775, 724, 264 of imported mer-
chandise the enormous sum of S272,-
600, 900, which IS nearly $50, coo, 600
more than any customs revenue ever
collected in one year i'll this country in
the past. And to say that its rates will
probably check dutiable imports to the
extent of reducing the estimate to $70,-
600, 900 is only another way Of saying
that to that extent such rates are pro
hibitery.
American consumers are shut in the
homo market to be preyed upon by COM
binations and trusts without POSSIBLE
ty of relief from outside competition.
Such combinations. by joining to keep
up prices and to cnrtail production,
wage more mereiless wax against the
employment, the opportunities and the
compensation of American labor than
any possible competition from abroad
could do.
The falling off of importations under
the present law dispels the illusion
that the American labo1er is anywhere
deprived of employment by the impor-
tation of foreign products. The crafty
ing increase in our exports of manufac
lures is equally strong proof that those
laws are helping us to enter and com
mand new markets, which means not
only larger employment fer our arti-
sans, but more home consumers for our
farmers.
II ,ha NOW, &ar,ff hill s,,,,,,l- :, -, 49, |