Year: 1870




attention, and fail to conclude that our
tariff is adjusted upon most absurd and
inequitable principles? Here are the
masses of the people, the farmers, me-
chanics, merchants and laborers, all taxed
at the very lowest an average of fog,ty-f fire
per cent, gold, upon the most important
necessares, while the wealthy and COM
Portable classes are permitted to import
articles OF mere superfluous ornament free,
or for very light duty Does not this
system violate the plainest dictates Of
Justice and common sense


Ii we are told, in extenuation. that it is
necessary To place the most moderate du-
ties upon costly articles of luxury and or
nament because of the comparative ease
with which they can be smuggled, we take
issue with the statement upon two grounds:
Enst-rhere is no man intending 10 cheat
the revenue but can be detected as easily.
BY proper vigilance, in the case Of small
and costly articles as of any other and,
second-It should be the business Of the
Government so to simplify the system OF
revenue collection .by reducing the num-
ber of articles on which duties are levied
(exempting all raw materials and articles
of necessary consumption) as to leave the
revenue officers ample time to perfect the
methods of collection, and detect frauds
with almost infallible certainty One of
the worst consequences of our present most
complex and iniquitous tariff system, is,
that its enforcement takes an army of Office
holders, who cannot possibly, he their
number what it may, collect the revenue
on four thousand articles Of importation
now taxed, without neglectng Vnd slight
ing much of their Iproper work. Reduce
the tariff-list of dutiable articles to q few
hundred items Of luxury, together with
tea, coffee and sugar, and the revenue col
lections would he so greatly simpihed "a
TO render 1t easy to get along with half
the force now EN- ployed, and to increase IN
definitely the efficiency OF that half


Besides, the indirect effect of checking
political corruption would be enormous.
since the army OF office-holdels entailed
upon us by our complicated tariff, must be
quartered on the Treasury, TO be changed
with each change of party, and sometimes
with the mere change Of an official head
within the party. Thus, instead of huei-
ness experts, thoroughly honest and quail
flied, we get mere political pimps and do
nothings, whose interest it is to make
what monev they can during their brief
tenure Of Office, and TO defraud the reve-
nue. themselves, instead of detecting the



ploys an array Of Custom house officers, at
high salaries, to discharge in the loosest
manner the most responsible duties, when
it should save at least half the cost by re-
ducing the tariff and the Custom house
collections along with it. Revenue re-
form will never be complete until The cx-
pense Of collecting il is heavily reduced
and the whole system OF appointment tn
office placed upon business basis instead
of political one.


Why is it that these facts need to he So
often reiterated? Why has Congress Mt
terly failed to correct the abuses and i.-
regularities of the tariff system, and done.
its utmost to perpetuate the enormous and
odious taxes under which the industr, and
business of the country has so long la
bored? We have been unable to find any
excuse for them, save the excuse of icno-
rance, and even that poor excuse is long
since removed, The press, both at the
West and the East, has done it's duty ON
the subject, and made the exposure of
these evils and incongruities so plain that
nothing but judicial blindness or a corr
rupted vision could fail to see them.