The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1897-05-14
WILSON VS.. DINGLEY.
Author Of the Present Law Criti-
cises the Dingley Bill
says II IL "the Most Ultra Protective
Iartn Ever Proposed"-WH EN-
courage Trust. and Discourage
American Labor.

Wilson is credited with the authorship
of the tariff bill now in force. His
hands were tied so that he could not
make the bill nearly as good as lac de-
sired to make il. and the bill as finally
passed was not nearly as good as when
it first passed the house. IL was, how
Kinley bill and is a model as compared
with the Dingley mo~nstrosity. We
quote the following from Mr.. Wilson's
criticism of the Mckinley and Dingley
bills in a recent number of the New
York Herald:
These bills are so nearly Identical in
general structure and particular items,
excepting as to the sugar schedule, that
it may be well to consider the effect of
the first bill on the revenue of the coun-
try. Both bills are vast and voluminous
schemes of class taxation. the produc-
ton of public revenue being an incident
and entirely subordinate to the purpose
OF taxing all the American people for
the benefit Of a small part of the peo-
pie.
The protectionist has but one remedy,
nnitu hC dDPiito NhtthtA a. eht
be redundant or deficient. If times are
prosperous. and more money than is
needed pours into the treasury. ne in
creases taxes by a scheme that turns
the larger part Of their avails into pri-
rate pockets. and this reduces public
revenue. If times are depressed and less
money than is needed pours into the
treasury, he seizes the pretext of in
creasing public revenues by adding
enormously to the amount OF private
exnction.
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 a trust fund of more than
$4,000, 900. 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 a 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 $4,000 900 of token
and subsidiary coin not before treated
as q treasury asset. With these extraor-
binary additions, even, we WOUND up the
fiscal year, June so, 1895, with a sur
plus of only S2.341.674 as against a
surplus for the fiscal year June 30,
1890, Of over SIS. 0.o00 before the
above trust fund and subsidiary coin
were touched. And during the fiscal
year ended June so, 1894, through all
of which the Mckinley bill was in force,
expenditures exceeded the revenues to
the oun Of 500, 500. 200. notwith-
standing the fact tina: the expenditures
of the government were S15.952,674 less
than in the preceding year.
This statement shows how absurd and
groundless is the claim constantly made
by the protectionists that recent def
cts in revenues are due to the substi-
tuition of the existing tariff for the Nc
kinley bill. Nothing is more certain
than that If the bill had been in force
during the last three years the annua
deficit would have been immensely
swollen, while the people in a season of
depression and hard times would have
staggered under much heavier burdens
of taxation. Even in this disastrous Pc
Rod. customs duties under the existing
law nave increased from less than S132,-
900, 900 in 1894. the last year of the Nc
Kinley bill. to over S152. 100000 in 1895
and to over 100000 900 in 1896.
In the sugar schedule alone the bal
nnce in favor Of the existing law is
about $685. 900. The customs rev-
enue reached nearly $4,000, 900. scarce
ly any Of which would have been re-
ceived under the Mckinley bill.
That the Dingley bill, present condi-
tions considered. is the most ultra pro-
tective tariff ever proposed to be
enacted in this country plainly appears
from Chairman Dingley's statement
that il levied on the imp~ortations of the
last fiscal year IT would have increased
the $112,O0 ,000-that i. TO say,
it would have gathered from an impor-
tation Of $775,724.264 Of imported mer-
chandise the enormous sum of $272.-
0O0, 900, which is nearly $780, coo, 900
more than any customs revenue ever
collected in one year in this country in
the past And to say its rates will
probably check dutiable imports to the
extent of reducing the estimate to $780,
100000 is only another way of saying
that to that extent such rates are pro-
hibitory.
American consumers are shut In the
home market to be preyed upon by com
binations and trusts without possibil-
ity Of relief from outside competition.
Such combinations, by joining to keep
up prices and TO curtail production,
wage more merciless war 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 laborer Is anywhere
deprived Of employmcnt by the impor