The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-18

The New Tariff Absurdity.
Apropos of the discussion of the tariff
which is growing in eagerness from day
to day, and which is destined soon to
o-vershadow all other public questions,
the New York Evening Post is doing
good service to the public in keeping the
effects of the Mckinley Act in prom
inence. This famous measure was en-
titled "An Act to reduce the revenue, /"
etc. It's effect fully justified its title.
This was the way it worked
The customs revenue of the country for
the year ending June 80, 1890. was $685.
ess,5s4. The Mckinley Act went into force
about the middle of the succeeding year,
the one ending tune so, 1891, and in this
year the revenue fell to $21s, 522, 2o5. a re-
duction of more than ten million dollar
In the next year, ending Tune 30, 1892. the
customs revenue was s1T. 452, 964. In 1898,
it took a squirt, reaching 5000, s55. OH; but
in 1894 it fell lower than ever, viz, to
s1s1, s1s,5s.
In the next year, the first of the Wilson
tariff. it rose Immediately, giving $780,
15S,617, although the country was in the
midst of the greatest financial uneasiness
and depression in it's history.
Everyone knows that the Harrison adj
ministration was confronted with a deficit
of about $50, 900, 600 in 1898, and Secretary
Foster juggled out of it by a gross mis-
appropriation of credits in his annual re-
port. This was the notorious transfer
of s54, 900, 900 constituting the bank-note
redemption fund to his general account
to force a balance and a nominal surplus
of s., 600. This transaction is too old
and too well understood to call for COM
ment now.
The tariff bill which Mr.. Dingley has
just presented to Congress appears to be,
In the judgment of experts, even u worse
income than the Mckinley abomination.
The estimate of Dingley himself that it
is capable of producing SIP, 600. 900 more
revenue than the Wilson tariff is founded
upon the grotesque assumption that it
win not alter the volume of imports in
any way. This is so impossible a conse-
quence that even Mr.. Dingley is forced
to see it. and so he discounts his figures
in various ways until he gets them down
to a very modest total indeed.
E,,< rnodoc% oc hfc fno1 6ov,~ac y
there appears to be no reason behind
them. Thus, he figures IN receipts of
s11,000.O 900 from wool in the first year of
the new schedule. Just how reasonable
this is may be judged from the fact that
the manufacturers all over the country,
in anticipation of this duty, a been
making hay while the sun shines, and all
or nearly all of them have at least a
years stock of wool on hand.
Mr.. Dingley further claims that the,
new schedule on wooden fabrics will pro-
duce s14, 900, 600. This is simply funny
when taken in connection with the
fourishes about its protective quality.
We are told in one breath that the figures
are designed to compensate wooden manu-
facturers for the tariff on raw wool and
to give them additional advantages, to
boot; yet with the next breath we are
told that, under it, importations of wool
ems are to furnish s14,0 900 more revenue
to the government. Truly the men who
deal in such arguments, must take the
American people for fools.
The Post" sums up one of its discuss
sions of this bill by calling it "a leap in
the dark Nothing could be better put.
There is no telling how it will result in
point of revenue. The POST points out
that the hackers of the Mckinley tariff
made a mistake of over $40, 600. 600 in esti-
mating the returns from it for the first
year., and the Dingley combination may
well be just as far out in their calcu-
~1ations.
Meantime, such is the .fngratitude', of
man, the wooden manufacturers are filed
with wrath at the new schedules and are
cursing the Republican party up hill and
down dale for its villainous contempt Of
the industrial interests of the country.