The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1897-05-08

auu DlscOuT&aSSo AmeElcan LaOOT-MaKoS
Some Serious Reflections Upon the nc
Kinley Bill as g Revenue Producer.
Ex-Postmaster General William L.
Wilson is credited with the authorship
of the tariff bill now in force. His
hands we're tied SO that he could not
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. It 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 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 Oh the revenue of the coun-
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 a scheme that turns
tho 1orro,. ,ort ~ f,oi,, s1o ;,,4o
vate pockets. and this reduces public
revenue. If times are depressed and less
money than is needed pours into the
treasury, he sciz5s the pretext Of in
creasing public revenues by adding
enormously to the amount of private ex-
action.
The act Of 1890, whatever it's other
effects, did reduce revenue. From a
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
$54, 900, 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 r2se Of this trust fund and the fur
Their fact that Secretary Foster, by a
change Of bookkeeping, added to the
treasury balance $40, 000,0 900 Of token
and subsidiary coin not before treated
as a treasury asset. With these extraor-
binary additions, even, we wound up the
| fiscal year June so, 1898, with a sur
plus Of only So, BAL STA as against a
surplus for the fiscal year June 80,
| 1890, Of over $85, 900 before the
above trust fund and subsidiary coin
were touched. And during the fiscal
year ended Juno SC, 1894, through all
of which the Mckinley bill was in force,
| expenditures exceeded the revenues to
the amount Of $50, sos, $3.50, notwith-
standing the fact that the expenditures
| Of the government were S15, 952, 674
| less than in the preceding year.
This statement shows how absurd and
grcundless 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 i'll a season of depression and
hard times would have staggered under
much heavier burdens Of taxation. Even
| in this disastrous period, customs duties
J under the existing law have increased
from less than $132, 900, 900 in 1894,
| the last year Of the Mckinley bill, to
even 1852, CSC, 900 in 1896 and to over
$3.50, 0C0, 600 in 1896.
In the sugar schedule alone the bal
ance in favor Of the existing law is
about $55, COO, COG. The customs revs-
nue. reached nearly $40, 600, 900, scarce
| ~ any Of which would have been re-
ceivablo under the Mckinley bill.
That the Dingley bill, present condi-
tions considered, is the most ultra pro-
tective tariff ever proposed to be enact
cd 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 $l12, 900, 000-that is to say, it
would have gathered from an importa-
ton Of $775, 1874, 1854 of imported mer-
| chandise the enormous sum of $272,-
100000, which is nearly $4,000, 900
more than any customs revenue ever
collected in one year in this country in
the past. And to say that 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 possibili-
ty 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. $50. 49, - : :.
/ The falling off of importations under
the present law dispels the illusion
! that the American .lahorar is anywhere