The Washington bee., 1897-08-28
WILSON VS.. DINGLEY.
Author Of the Present Law Criti-
cises the Dingley Bill
Says 1t Is ''the Most Ultra Protective
Tariff Ever PrOposed"-WiIl En-
courage Trusts and Discourage
American Labor.


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, a great improvement upon the Nc
Kinley bill and is model as compared
with the Dingley monstrosity. 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 we'll to consider the effect OF
the first bill on the revenue of the coun-
trv. Both bills are vast and voluminous
schemes of class taxation, the pToduc-
ton 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 peo-
pie.
The protectionisthasb 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 a scheme that turns
the larger part of their avails into pr1-
vate 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
exaction.
The act of 1890, whatever its other
effects, cid reduce revenue. From
large surplus it swept US headlong to
deficiency, although it weighted the
people with heavier taxes and although
another law, passed in July, 1890,
turned into the treasury as 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 large deficiency but for
the use of this trust fund and the fur
ther fact that Secretary Foster, by a
change of bookkeeping, added to the
treasury balance S20.OO0,OOO of token
and subsidiary coin not before treated
as a treasury asset. With these extraor-
dinary additions, even, we wound up the
fiscal year, June 80, 1895, with sur
plus of only $2,341,674 as against a
1890, of over SS5,O00,OO0 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 amount of 500, ,SO3, ,26O, notwith-
standing the fact that the expenditures
of the government were 5.952, ,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 annual
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
riod, customs duties under the existing
law have increased from, less than $780,
100000 in 1894, the last year of the Nc
Kinley bill, to over 1852, 900, 900 in 1895
and to over $16O,OOO,OOO in 1896.
In the sugar schedule alone the bal
ance in favor of the existing law is
about S55.0OO,O0O. The customs rev.
enue reached nearly S4O,OOO,00O, scarce
1y any of which would have been re-
cefved 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 if levied on the importations of the
last fiscal year it would have increased
the revenues SIP, ,O00,O ,O00-that is to say,
it would have gathered from an impor-
tation of SITS, 5,724,264 of imported mer-
chandise the enormous sum of S272,-
100000, which is nearly $50,00O,00o
more than any customs revenue ever
collected in one year in this country in
the past. And to say its rates will
probably check dptiable imports to the
extent of reducing the estimate to S70,-
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 employment by the impor.
tation of,foreign products. The graf.
flying increase in our exports of manu-.
factures is equally strong proof that
those laws are helping us to enter and
command new markets, which means
not only larger employment for our art.
fsans h,1k mora bomo onuournaru Aoa