The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-03-18
"CHEATING'' THE REVENUE.

What is your opinion of the policy
of suspending the bonding privilege
pending the adoption of the tariff bill?'
is the sole answer the president is said,
by Curtis, to have made to an appli-
cant for Office. Two or more months
ago the Boston Home Market club sent
to Washington and congress frantic
appeal for the passage of some kind of
a measure to prevent the rascally i'm
porters from cheating" the revenue
by laying in large stocks Of those arti-
cles on which the duty would probably
be increased before the new rates
could take effect. One member of the
ways and means committee is said to
have advised importers to save them
selves trouble and litigation, because
| congress would pass law that would
make them pay the increased duties
on imports brought in before the pass
age Of the tariff act. '3They can't
cheat the revenue that way"
Wool is free of tax now and will be
until the Dingley bill goes into effect,
levying tax Of II cents a pound on
clothing, II cents pound on combings
and from 90 to so per cent ad valorem
on carpet woods. On every pound that
can be imported before those rates fall
the importer stands To make a clean
profit of the amount of the tax. This,
from the orthodox protectionist's point
Of view is Cheating" the revenue. But
cheating or not, dealers in domestic
and foreign wool alike are raking and
scraping together every available dol
lar nowadays and buying wool. Sixty
million pounds were reported last week
to have been bought at the last Lon
! don sale for the Boston market. One
| Massachusetts mill has provided itself
with wool enough to run it four years
! Chicago reports enormous sales on &C
count Of Western mills, but these are
as nothing to those made on Eastern
account" One of the leading carpet
houses in the country, w. & ]. Sloane,
of New York, send out a circular to
the trade warning them Of the impend-
ing change, and that enough seems
! certain to predict that the cost of car
pets in the near future will be very
largely increased" And so the rush
for the hog trough becomes universal
and the president and Mr.. Dingley are
cudgeling their wits to head off the
rush and save the swill
To the orthodox protectionist all this
is simply and purely an attempt to
cheat the revenue" He frets and
fumes and RACES over 1t and calls
names and makes faces and vows ven
geance. He would enact a law declar-
ing that fraud which, when commit
ted, was innocent. He would have it
provide for the seizure and forfeiture
of goods for the non-payment of a tax
that had no existence. He would have
congress assert the tremendous power
of making taxation retroactive and tax
articles imported when they were on
the free list or when the duty was
less. And, granted the power, time is
immateriaI. Retroactive taxes may
as properly be laid for six or ten years
as for year or a quarter of one. No
court would. for moment, sustain
such a proposition. But the humorous
feature of the situation, aside from tn
impotent raging over '1ost" revenue
is the stigmatizing Of the most natural
and human of impulses, TO get what
you need or want at the least cost, as
crime, a cheating of the revenue.
practically smuggling. 1t never for an
instant dawns upon these obfuscated
intellects that the whole nefarious
scheme is one in which the government
and the importers and dealers go into
game to cheat the consumers, with
the usual result that the lay partners
in the brace game get all the profits