The Alaska citizen., 1911-02-13
SOME TARIFF ILLUSTRATIONS


 justified under any kind of reason ing except that it is good thing for the very rich who. on account of it, are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the poor every year under the fake theory that they need protection. We have further under taken to show that the Republican party is the father of the scheme and is wholly responsible for it. We realize that a discussion of the tariff invariably brings up visions of endless schedules and that the ordinary citizen shrinks from even reading anything upon the subject as being altogether too tiresome. l. is this disinterestednes of the aver age citizen to educate himself upon the subject, that makes it possible for the most gigantic steal in the history of the world to be carried It is the purpose of this paper to endeavor to arouse the interest of it's readers in the subject of the tariff by discussing it in plain way, elim- mating all technical terms and the dry matter of schedules. so that a fair understanding of the subject may be obtained by those who have never given the subject any serious con- sideration. To that end let us, as nearly as may be, bring the matter home to ourselves.
 Let us suppose, for the purposes of the illustration. that the town of Fairbanks had full power and authority to make and enforce any and all laws that it should desire. and further. that it was not amen able or bound. or affected by any of the existing laws of the United States in other words that it had a free hand in all things whatsoever. Under those circumstances, what would we do. In the first place. we "ouiu IiuNC to ploNlSIOlS lpl sufficient revenue to run the city government. How would we natur- ally do this. Would We tax the property of the citizens, or would we put a tariff on the goods con- ing into the town. If we would adopt the tariff plan, then we would be compelled to establish customs house to collect the revenues, with all the officers necessary to do the work, besides putting a corps of de- tectives in the field to prevent smuggling. It. will be seen at once that this would be much more ex- pensive way of collecting the reve- nues than by the levy of direct tax and for that reason alone if for no other, it would be altogether objectionable and would not be thought of for a moment. But when we look little farther and see that by the tarid method of raising the revenue, the property owners would escape taxes entirely on their prop erty, and all Of the taxes would have to be paid by the consumer of the goods upon which the tariff tax is levied, then We can easily see that it would not only be much more ex- pensive but manifestly unjust as dis eliminating against the consumer of the goods. It will be readily seen that the home merchant, who re- ceives the goods, or the Seattle mer- chant who ships them, will not pay the tariff. It will simply be added to the price to the local consumer who must pay it. Under this system, Jim Russell, with the biggest family in Alaska, would pay as much or more of the tax than the N. c. Co.,, which would be an unfair discrimi- nation against the poor and strug- ling. It is clear that we would not adopt tariff for revenue, but would levy direct tax upon property and iii''fho 'hS p'oPSits pay 'He 't'A, JuSl as the government of the United States should do to be fair to all of the citizens. Now we come to the question of protection of indus tries. Let us suppose that the N. c. Co. should desire to go into the business of manufacturing, say stoves and mining machinery, and that company should go to the City Coun- cil and make the argument that it would cost twice as much to manu- facture stoves and mining machinery here than it costs in the states but that it would be to the ad- vantage of the town to have these factories here, and get that body to put tariff of one hundred per cent. upon those articles so that they could raise the price that much and manufacture those articles here. Now, who would pay this increased price? Clearly the persons who should finally use the article. It would. certainly be poor business to compel the consumer of these arti- cles to pay this advanced price just in order to keep a factory running in Fairbanks. It would be only com mon sense to allow our citizens to buy in the cheapest market so they can carry On their OwD huSineSS in