Revenue tariff

“ The result of the recent election must be accepted as having introduced a new policy. We must assume that the present tariff, constructed upon the lines of protection, is to be repealed and that there is to be substituted for it a tariff law constructed solely with reference to revenue; that no duty is to be higher because the increase will keep open an American mill or keep up the wages of an American workman, but that in every case such a rate of duty is to be imposed as will bring to the Treasury of the United States the largest returns of revenue. ”

“ While Revenue Taxes select by preference things wholly imported, Protectionist Taxes are placed of course on such foreign goods as are also and especially made or grown at home, otherwise their plain and sole purpose would be thwarted, which completes the contrast between the two kinds of tariffs. For illustration, Tea and Coffee are the best things possible to tax in a tariff for revenue, because (1) they are in universal consumption, and (2) they are wholly imported, and taxes upon them do not raise the price of anything else, and so the Government gets all that the people pay under them ”

“ A true revenue reform can not be made in a day, but must be the work of national legislation and of time. As soon as the revenue can be dispensed with, all duty should be removed from coffee, tea and other articles of universal use not produced by ourselves. The necessities of the country compel us to collect revenue from our imports. An army of assessors and collectors is not a pleasant sight to the citizen, but that of a tariff for revenue is necessary. ”

“ The effect of taxation upon revenue can seldom be foreseen with certainty. It must abide the test of experience. As yet no symptom? of diminution are perceptible in the receipts of the Treasury. As yet little addition of cost has even been experienced upon the articles burdened with heavier duties by the last tariff. The domestic manufacturer supplies the same or a kindred article at a diminished price, and the consumer pays the same tribute to the labor of his own countryman which he must otherwise have paid to foreign industry and toil. ”

“ No tariff is paid on home manufactures, and yet, in all cases, the manufacturer adds to the cost of production the amount of the tariff placed on like articles, and collects it from the purchaser or consumer. A tariff for protection gives to the manufacturers a monopoly, in some cases so complete as to drive the foreign article from our ports. In such cases the government receives no revenue, but the manufacturer makes a clean profit of the per cent fixed by the tariff, all of which is eventually paid by the consumer, and for which he receives no consideration. ”

“ The second board was composed of economists and others well versed in matters relating to the tariff and Internal Revenue, who, broadly speaking, were instructed to work out a tariff law which would contemplate the abolishment of the theory of protection as a governmental policy. A tariff was to be imposed mainly as a supplement to the other taxes, the revenue from which, it was thought, would be almost sufficient for the needs of the Government, considering the economies that were being made. ”

“ That is purely revenue tariff, and is practically free trade.
Against this the Republican party proposes that our tariff duty shall be of an intelligent purpose, be levied chiefly upon competing articles. [Cheers.] That our American workmen shall have the benefit of discriminating duties upon the products of their labor. [Cheers.] The Democratic policy increases importation, and, by so much, diminishes the work to be done in America. It transfers work from the shops of South Chicago to Birmingham. ”

“ It is this paper system of extravagant expansion, raising the nominal price of every article far beyond its real value when compared with the cost of similar articles in countries whose circulation is wisely regulated, which has prevented us from competing in our own markets with foreign manufacturers, has produced extravagant importations, and has counteracted the effect of the large incidental protection afforded to our domestic manufactures by the present revenue tariff. ”

“ Besides, specific duties would afford to the American manufacturer the incidental advantages to which he is fairly entitled under a revenue tariff. The present system is a sliding scale to his disadvantage. Under it, when prices are high and business prosperous, the duties rise in amount when he least requires their aid. On the contrary, when prices fall and he is struggling against adversity, the duties are diminished in the same proportion, greatly to his injury. ”

“ We favor immediate revision of the tariff by the reduction of import duties. Articles entering into competition with trust-controlled products should be placed upon the free list, and material reductions should be made in the tariff upon the necessaries of life, especially upon articles competing with such American manufactures as are sold abroad more cheaply than at home, and graduated reductions should be made in such other schedules as may be necessary to restore the tariff to a revenue basis. ”

“ I warn those who insist so pertinaciously upon a retention of these high duties upon necessary articles of consumption that they only hasten the time when a more radical change will be made in our tariff laws. What manufacturers need most of all is stability in legislation, avoiding sudden and sweeping changes. The changes which I have proposed would reduce the revenue only a few million dollars, while to the consumers of manufactures produced they would reduce the cost of those products many million dollars. ”

“ The tariff issue did not become prominent during the last period of depression, because then the financial problem seemed to have the closest relation to our economic condition. But when the next comes, the tariff will probably be the only great economic question before the country. Revenue reform will then be apt to present itself to the people in a new light, and to become an exciting topic. ”

“ I therefore strongly recommend a modification of the present tariff, which has prostrated some of our most important and necessary manufactures, and that specific duties be imposed sufficient to raise the requisite revenue, making such discriminations in favor of the industrial pursuits of our own country as to encourage home production without excluding foreign competition. It is also important that an unfortunate provision in the present tariff, which imposes a much higher duty upon the raw material that enters into our manufactures than upon the manufactured article, should be remedied. ”

“ We go for revenue; for an amount of revenue adequate to an economical administration of the government. We can get such revenue nowhere else than from a tariff on importations. No man in his senses will propose a resort to direct or internal taxes. And this arrangement of the tariff, while it answers this end, will at the same time operate as a check on the efflux of the precious metals, and retain what is necessary for the purposes of exchange and circulation. ”

“ The unsettled question which stands between the law maker and the importer is the rate. Both are now agreed as to the justice of the principle when equitably enforced; what remains is to agree upon what is equity to the importer, to the government, to the home producer and competitor and to the consumer.
I had the honor quite recently to suggest to the ways and means committee of Congress at one of the tariff revision hearings what I regarded as a "just tariff," which should be an act so drawn as to produce the needed revenue and at the same time protect home interests. ”

“ THE MAKING OF THE BILL OF 1909 No one can study the drift of public opinion in each of the great agitations of the tariff question in the last fifty years without realizing that at least nine-tenths of the people have stood only for such duties as would produce needed revenue and would give industries which were trying to prove their ability to exist in the United States, protection through a limited period. ”

“ While the tariff of the last session of Congress was a subject of legislative deliberation it was foretold by some of its opposers that one of its necessary consequences would be to impair the revenue. It is yet too soon to pronounce with confidence that this prediction was erroneous. The obstruction of one avenue of trade not unfrequently opens an issue to another. The consequence of the tariff will be to increase the exportation and to diminish the importation of some specific articles ”

“ We denounce the present Democratic tariff as sectional, injurious to the public credit and destructive to business enterprise. We demand such an equitable tariff on foreign imports which come into competition with American products, as will not only furnish adequate revenue for the necessary expenses of the Government, but will protect American labor from degradation to the wage level of other lands. ”

“ If a tariff-rate is to be protectionist in character, that is, competent to raise the price of home products, it must be high, so as either to exclude altogether the corresponding foreign products, in [487] which case there is no revenue at all, or else to make their price by means of the duty added reach the point at which the home producers plan to sell their own, in which case there will be very little revenue. ”

“ It is a little bit of comfort to think, that they only obtained $28 per ton, or 11⁄4 cents per pound, which was not quite prohibitory, so that the Government got a little revenue on steel rails, and the people paid for some years only about double for their rails what they were worth in a free market! To reach its end a protectionist tariff-tax must be high of necessity. ”

“ They can first borrow from their own citizens; they can tax them to an almost unlimited extent; and they can raise revenue from a Tariff to an almost unlimited extent.
"How will it be with New England? where will their revenue come from? From your Custom-houses? what do you export? You have been telling us here for the last quarter of a century, that you cannot manufacture, even for the home market, under the Tariffs which we have given you. When this Tariff ceases to operate in your favor, and you have to pay for coming into our markets, what will you export? ”

“ All the wealth of the Nation ought to contribute its fair share to the expenses of the Nation.
TARIFF LAW
The present tariff law has accomplished its two main objects. It has secured an abundant revenue and been productive of an abounding prosperity. Under it the country has had a very large export and import trade. A constant revision of the tariff by the Congress is disturbing and harmful. ”

“ He alluded to the discontent created by the high tariff, adding that the people could not be expected to pay high taxes for the benefit of the manufacturers, when the revenue was not required for the administration of the government. He also mentioned the opposition to the collection of the revenue in one quarter of the United States, but hoped that the laws would be found adequate to the suppression thereof. ”

“ The predictions which were made that the tariff act of 1846 would reduce the amount of revenue below that collected under the act of 1842, and would prostrate the business and destroy the prosperity of the country, have not been verified. With an increased and increasing revenue, the finances are in a highly flourishing condition. Agriculture, commerce, and navigation are prosperous ”

“ The main features of the tariff history of the United States since the Civil War have been that the internal taxes have been almost entirely swept away, the import duties on purely revenue articles similarly abolished, while those import duties that operated to protect domestic industries have been maintained, and indeed in many cases increased. ”

“ Manufactures were drying up at the root. A material augmentation of the national revenue from some source had become necessary. ... Whatever difference of opinion existed respecting the necessity of additional protection to manufacturers, some expedient, it was universally conceded, must be adopted to increase the public revenue. As no one favored direct taxation, a revision of the tariff was the only mode of enriching the treasury. ... The committee on manufactures did not report to the House until the last of March, 1842. ”

“ The duties are made so high that it is not profitable to import the articles. When rates of duties are fixed primarily with the object of raising revenue, and without regard to their effect upon the industries of the country, we have a tariff for revenue. This kind of tariff is generally meant when the term free trade is used. Articles on which no duties are imposed are said to be on the free list. There is no country which fails to collect duties on some of its importations. ”

“ It is objected, that the effect of the encouragement of home manufactures, by the proposed tariff, will be, to diminish the revenue from the customs. The amount of the revenue from that source will depend upon the amount of importations, and the measure of these will be the value of the exports from this country. The quantity of the exportable produce will depend upon the foreign demand ”

“ In raising revenue, duties should be so levied upon foreign products as to preserve the home market, so far as possible, to our own producers; to revive and increase manufactures; to relieve and encourage agriculture; to increase our domestic and foreign commerce; to aid and develop mining and building; and to render to labor in every field of useful occupation the liberal wages and adequate rewards to which skill and industry are justly entitled. The necessity of the passage of a tariff law which shall provide ample revenue, need not be further urged. ”