Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-02-17

during the hours of daylight. 1T was
10 degrees below zero at noon with
full sunshine.
REPUBLICANS AND TARIFF.
"The republican party said Presi-
dent Taft in his Lincoln day speech,
"has taken its position in favor OF as
little disturbance of the business OF
the country as possible in respect to
tariff changes by requiring that those
changes shall only take place sched-
ule by schedule, and then only after
a full entertainment of the facts by a
nonpartisan tariff board or commission
which shall enable congress and the
public at large to know what must be
the necessary effect of the proposed
Legislation"
The president in pressing before con-
gress the necessity of providing a tar
if commission took the grounds that
business had suffered untold loss and
hardship by the continual agitation Of
an issue which is economic in it's
bearing.
A precisely similar position was
taken by, Harry A. Wheeler, former
president of the Chicago association of
commerce, in addressing the Cincinnati
Commercial association. Mr.. Wheel
er, speaking as a business man to
business men, discussed the tariff as
an economic question, not SO import
ant to the people Of the country as
they have been led to believe, except
as the constant danger of revision has
the tendency to unsettle and thereby
affect the people as whole. The
rorp a Il Trib,1no oivoS
the following report of Mr. Wheeler's
talk: ~ :.
LET us look at this matter from a
very simple standpoint. Gradually
the situation is readjusting itself. To-
day more than so per cent of all i'm
ports into the United States enter free
of duty. In 1870 free importations
amounted to 81 cents per capita; In
1911 free importations amounted to
$3.50 per capita. During this same
forty years, while the amount of our
imports in dollars has increased 1853
per cent, the duties resulting there
from have increased but 80 per cent.
Now, let us see just how much the
customs tariff amounts to. In 1911 the
total receipts were $313,000,000, about
1894 per capita, or in other words,
less than one cent per day per capita,
and customs duties were collected to
a very large extent upon an enormous
number of articles not entering at all
into the daily life of the people and
consequently not affecting the cost Of
living in the slightest degree.
Il do not maintain that the tariSSs
are not too high, or that reduction is
not desirable. believe that it is, but
believe we should face this matter
squarely and show to the people of this
country that it is not the saving in the
cost of living that would be made
through slight reductions upon this or
that schedule, as they have been led to
suppose, but that the influence of tariff
reduction, or of destroying it entirely,
would not in itself materially reduce
the cost of living, while it would to an
absolute certainty in many lines of pro-
|duction decrease the wage and lower
the earning power.
sour political parties do not make an
annual campaign for the reduction of
the cost OF living by cutting our in
ternal revenue receipts, and yet the
internal revenue receipts exceed those
Of the customs tariff and are more
generally applicable to every man,
woman and child than are the customs
tariff receipts.
las an economic principle it is be-
yond question that the constant danger
of tariff revision creates an uncer-
tainty and unrest in business which
periodically reacts upon the wage
Garner, has tendency to decrease the
output OF our factories, lessons the buy
ing of our distributors and in loss of
employment and wage is more destruc-
tive to the people at large than could
be offset at a reduced cost of living
per capita if the entire customs tariff
were wiped out of existence.
This is business problem and not
one of partisan politics. Let there be
a revision, and may it be downward,
but have it made in a scientific man.
ner, after the customs Of other nations,
with competent study of the cause Of
the tariff and the effect of its reduc-
ton, cutting out all that form of pro-
lection which constitutes protection
to profits and leaving as our duty upon
|importations such tariffs as will pro-
tect our labor in the enjoyment of their
enlarged earning power and preserve
our industries from destructive COM
petition"