The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-21
DEFENSE OF THE DINGLEY ACT
GOVERNMENT sTATIsTICIANs
SAY IT PRODUCES REVENUE.
Is Yielding Half a Million Dollars
Per Day and That Is All That Is
Ever Expected.

Washington, Nov. 20.-The discussion
as to the revenue-producing qualities
Of the present tariff law lends special
interest to a series of tables just issued
by the treasury bureau of statistics,
showing the receipts from various
sources by months during a long term
OF years.
An examination of these figures
shows that the customs receipts of the
treasury department now amount to
one-half of the ordinary expenditures
of the government, which is about the
usual proportion allotted to that branch
of the revenue-producing service. The
ordinary expenditures of the govern
ment, aside from those of the poStoffice
department, which is practically self
sustaining, are usually calculated at
about a million dollars per day, and
averaged during the years 1894 to- 1897,
$3.50, 500, 600 per annum, and at about the
same ratio in 1888, emitting the Pa
cific railroad and extraordinary war
expenditures. The general plans of
those charged with the duty of pro-
viding the revenues for the government
have contemplated the production of
one-half of the necessary expenditures
from customs, and the remaining half
from internal revenue and miscellane-
Gus sources; or, in other words, a half
million dollars a day from customs and
a half-million dollars a day from in
ternal revenue and miscellaneous.
1t is Interesting, therefore, to ex-
anime the detailed figures of the re-
ceipts of the government during the
time in which the present customs law
has operated under normal conditions,
and to determine whether it is supply
ing it's assigned proportion of half of
the normal expenditures. The daily
statement of receipts and expenditures
issued by the treasury department
shows that on Nov H. the one hundred
and fortieth day of the present fiscal
year, the customs receipts had, during
those 40 days, amounted to $73, $40 429.
Of this sum, a little over $1,000,000 was
from the duty placed upon tea by the
war revenue act, so that fully S72 00O.-
600 of the $73, $40, 429 received in these
40 days are the legitimate normal
revenues from the rates levied by the
customs law enacted in July, 1897, or a
little more than the promised rate of
a half-million dollars a day from GUS
toms under that act.
The receipts from customs during the
past ten years have averaged $15, 199 900
per month. This ten-years term in
cludes the operations of four tariff
laws, and it is, therefore, interesting to
compare the operations of the new law
at it's various stages with this general
average during a. ten-years term, which
includes the operations of four tariff
acts.
AS it was not expected that the new
law would, in its first few months, op-
crate normally in it's production of
customs revenue, owing to the exces-
sive importations just prior to it's en-
actnlent, it is not improper to show,
first, the average receipts during the
first four months of its operation, in
Guided in the calendar year 1897, and
also to consider separately the last four
months of its operation, dating from
the beginning of the present fiscal year.
Receipts from customs, monthly aver
age: Ten years, 1SS9-98, $15, 199, 900;
August to December, 1897. IS, 227. 900:
Jan. to Nov. l. 1898, SIS, Oh, 600; July
l to Nov. L 1898. SIS 9S2. 600.