The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-04-29
REVIVAL OF TARIFF TALK.

<AAN VI <Aieii NA4ANs
Those who have kent an eve from
week to week on the regular reports
of the condition of the United States
Treasury will not be at all surprised
to hear, as the end of the fiscal year
approaches, a revival Of talk about a
revision of the tariff. AS the Journal
for months past, the failure of the
Governments receipts to equal its ex-
penditures has been contributing to
an argument or modification Of the
Dingley law which the stand patters
cannot indefinitely ignore. At the
present moment the Treasury books
show a deficit, for the year of consfd-
erably more than thirty million dol
lars. Whether this will be increased
or decreased in the two remaining
months of the year is an open ques-
ton: but it certainly cannot be re-
duced very much. There are those,
even in Treasury circles, who think
that by the end of June the total win
be as high as thirty-five million, and
even the actuary of the Department
does not promise anything less than
| twenty-th millions
The difference between these figures
and the eighteen millions which We're
the official estimate placed before con-
gress at the beginning of the last
session. may not be alarming, but it
certainly emphasizes the inevitability
! of some revenue legislation in the not
distant future. Secretary Shaw, with
| the familiar competency of his me-
diocrity as national financier, Is quot
ed as saying that there is nothing
alarming In the deficit figures And
he adds: Eve may be a little wose off
at the end Of the year than / thought
but 4. Congress can turn
the deficit into a surplus whenever it
pleases. So it can and it will certain
" be called upon to do so, for it is OBJ
vious that the country cannot be left
to go on indefinitely under revenue
law that produces such unsatisfactory
results. 1t would be absurd indeed for
a prosperous people to continue sinking
into debt for the running expenses Of
their Government.
A revenue problem is thus immedi-
| ately impending; and even those who
deny that there is any economic neces-
| sity for revising the tariff recognize
that the taking up Of this problem in
| wolves the reopening, to some extent
at least, Of the question of tariff rate.
1t is possible, of course, that the de-
| ficiency in the Governments income
might be made up by increasing the in
| ternai tax on beer and by again resort
| ing to some Of the devices which We're
| employed for raising money during the
! Spanish War-such as the requirement
| Of stamps on commercial paper and
records. But a public man need not be
| an especially shrewd politician to I'M
/ derstand that recourse to war taxes in
| times of pease would be very unpopular
and that to change the revenue law
! without touching the tariff portion of
| them would be to aggrayate an ele-
ment of discomfort in the electorate
| that is already Troublesome enough.
Hence we may well believe the re-
ports that during the coming summer,
after the President has returned
/ from his hunting trip and the scat
| tered members of the Senate finance
committee can be, breugh together
for consultation, the question of re-
| adjusting the tariff will be seriously
| taken up, with a view more especially
| to increasing the national revenue 1t
| is extremely doubtful, of course,
| whether out of any deliberations to
| that end we can get away any such re-
vision of the tariff as will really meet
the industrial and commercial needs
| of the country. But there is some
1 cause for congratulation, surely, in
this forcing of the stand -patters from
their first position Of unyeilding op-
| position to the alteration of the tariff
in the slightest particular. Once the
work of reconstruction Of the sched-
ules is begun there is no telling how
| for the. pressure of public opinion
/ may force the reconstructors Any
way the stand-pat programme has
proved inpracticable, DEBATED, as the
| Journal always said it ultimately
must be, by the necessity of keeping
the Government in funds.-(Providence