New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-05-04
THE VALUE OF A FREE HAND.


How much truth there may be in the report
from Hong Kong that the Sultan of Sulu is dis
satisfied with the tariff imposed by the Ameri-
can authorities on imports into the archipelago
is doubtful. Hong Kong and Shanghai are the
great Oriental sources of imaginative news. 1t
is somewhat doubtful If there is any tariff for
him TO object to- since the official reports up to
December 81, 1899. while showing some dis
bursements to the commssary and depot quar-
termaster in Jolo, his capital, do not show any
revenue receipts from Jolo or any other place In
the Sulus How far since that date the estab-
lishment of the machinery of American rule has
I proceeded we have at this writing no means of
knowing, but assuming that the Americans
have established tariff on goods from Snga-
pore and that the natives find it inconvenient,
what is the lesson of the incident?
Simply that we must suit our tariffs and other
taxes to the local situation of the people to
whom they apply 1t may readily happen that
a schedule adopted in Washington may not meet
the actual conditions prevailing in the Suu ISL
ands 1t would be no discredit to the good
faith or intelligence of the officials preparing it
if it did not. Indeed. only superhuman wisdom
could expect even on the ground, off hand TO
hit the perfect mean of tariff equitable in all
details-much less to do it from Manila or
Washington. In administering these islands
peOpled by different races, in different stages OF
civilization and with varying needs, we shall
probably have to revise our revenue system
from time to time in the light of experience and
adjust it to local conditions Thanks to the
precedent established by the Porto Rico BILL we
shall probably be able to do this, and it was in
anticipation of just such situations that The
Tribune urged as of the greatest Importance in
enabling us to solve our new problems the as
~ ipbA
United States Government to make revenue
laws for each new possession as its needs might
require without regard to our domestic tariff
laws.
If the people in the Sulus do not like the mill
tary schedules prepared, so far knowledge at
! the time went, with the commercial condition
of the Philippines in view, what would they
have thought of the extension of the Dngley
tariff according to the "a propria vigore'' doc
trine which was so violently urged in the recent
Porto Rican debate? How they would have en-
joyed the privilege Of importing goods from
San Francisco some seven thousand miles, free
of duty in compensation for being shut off from
Singapore, their and natural depot of sup
plies, And yet that is just what our Democratic
constitutional theorists and anti-expansion SEN
timentasts wanted to force upon them in the
name of free trade and American rights The
laton TO the United States Porto Rico, and if
it was unconstitutional and tyrannical to make
a separate revenue system for Porto Rico it
would be equally unconstitutional and tyran-
nical to make for the Philippines any
part of them and the United States would be
obliged to tax the tobacco of Sulu barbarian
at the same rate that of a civilized Ameri-
can, though the tobacco of the former would
| thereby be put to an utterly prohibtive price.
Such Justice" to our new possessions would
clearly be a mockery. They are in a different
commercial hemisphere from ourselves, and in
| clusion within the tariff boundaries of a distant
| continent and isoa ton from their own natural
markets by governing them as a part of the
| United States for which uniform tariff is pre-
| scribed would evidently be the worst of OPP
| preston.
If the Suus find revenue regulations in
any way burdensome and inequitable doubtless
the Government will be ready to remedy any
difficulty, and under the Administrators in
depreciation of the Constitution it is able to do
so, but if the critics of the Porto Rican legisla-
! ton who urged that the island must necessarily
| come under our home revenue laws had their
| way the Sulus might suffer without redress
| under A tariff-even a Democratic fOr-revenue-
only tarff-whch might be extremely light for
the well paid consumers of imported goods in
| civilized Boston, but would mean starvation to
| the cheap living people of barbarian Joo.