Tariff

“ The fundamental theory of the tariff is—whether it be correct or not I am not now discussing—that by that tariff you place the price of manufactured goods up to a range at which they can be produced in the country in which the tariff is levied, and upon the level of the range of wages and manner of living which obtain in that country. By so doing, if you have a proper volume of money, you set all your people at work, and keep them at work at a variety of occupations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a tariff of forty per cent is paid upon the imported article, when it is sold, the purchaser must re-pay this per cent to the importer, but the manufacturer can advance the price of his goods so as to realize forty per cent, or the amount of the tariff over his former prices, and still compete with the importer. The tariff protects him at the rate of forty per cent, which must be eventually paid by the consumer. ”

“ A tariff is not an abstraction. It embodies an analysis of the costs incurred in the transportation of a certain article and a decision as to how much should, therefore, be charged for the carriage of that article in order to produce a fair and reasonable return. Complex and technical cost-allocation and accounting problems must be solved in setting the tariff initially. ”

“ Tariff We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumption is always in favor of the consuming public. ”

“ A revenue tariff is a schedule of duties on goods entering or leaving a country, so arranged that the collection of taxes causes the least possible disturbance to domestic industry. Speaking generally, the duties may be on either imports or exports; but, as export duties are unconstitutional in the United States, our tariff discussions are concerned only with import duties. ”

“ The sole object of the tariff is to tax the produce of foreign industry, with the view of promoting American industry. The tax is exclusively levelled at foreign industry. That is the avowed and the direct purpose of the tariff. If it subjects any part of American industry to burdens, that is an effect not intended, but is altogether incidental, and perfectly voluntary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A protective tariff is the most familiar instance of this, since it enables the manufacturer to export the surplus for which there is no demand at home. If there were no tariff at all, and the expense of producing a certain article at home were materially greater than the expense of producing the same article abroad, there would be none produced, and, of course, none to export. ”

“ The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the inauguration of the next President.... In all tariff legislation the true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries. ”

“ If there is a tariff, we will say of fifty cents on a pair of shoes, and this tariff is so low that the foreign article can afford to pay it, then that tariff, of course, must be paid by the consumer. But suppose the tariff was five dollars on a pair of shoes—that is to say, absolutely prohibitory—does any man in his senses say that five dollars would be added to each pair of American shoes? ”

“ In other industries not protected by the tariff the same fierce competition leads to the formation of combinations. The tariff is simply an encouraging condition. The removal of the tariff would not destroy the combination unless it destroyed the industry at the same time; but, on the other hand, the removal of a protective tariff might very easily prevent the abuses of exorbitant prices which might be exacted by a combination protected by the tariff. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If upon its sale the farmer receives this or a less tariff profit, the wool leaves his hands charged with precisely that sum, which in all its changes will adhere to it, until it reaches the consumer. When manufactured into cloth and other goods and material for use, its cost is not only increased to the extent of the farmer’s tariff profit, but a further sum has been added for the benefit of the manufacturer under the operation of other tariff laws. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When he faces the tradesman for that purpose, he discovers that he is obliged not only to return in the way of increased prices his tariff profit on the wool he sold, and which then perhaps lies before him in manufactured form, but that he must add a considerable sum thereto to meet a further increase in cost caused by a tariff duty on the manufacture. ”

“ Effect of the tariff on industrial development.—What effect did the tariff policy have upon the industries and the commerce of the country? To this question the only safe answer is that the effect of the tariff was much less, for good or for bad, than has commonly been stated by writers on either side of the controversy between protection and free trade. The country has grown rich from the wealth of its natural resources and the character of its people. ”

“ IN JANUARY, a protective tariff bill was introduced in the American Congress. It was opposed by the South and by New England. On May 22, Congress, by a majority of five in the House and four in the Senate, passed American high tariff Clay's measure. The average rate of tariff was thirty-seven per cent. Before the passage of the bill England had been importing goods more cheaply than Americans could manufacture them. American manufacturers could now sell their goods at a profit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where the tariff rates balance the difference in cost at home and abroad, including an allowance for the difference in freight rates, the tariff must be competitive, and from that point downward to the lowest tariff that can be levied it will continue to be competitive to a greater or less extent. ”

“ Such is the Tariff which has subsisted during the last six years, more from the difficulty of agreeing upon a better, than from any peculiar excellence in the present system, the defects of which are but too apparent, and have led to a great deal of disagreeable discussion.
It is not of the amount of the duties that foreign merchants complain, so much as of the absurd scale of valuations, upon which these duties are paid. ”

“ Directions for Embroidery and Fancy Work, with 150 illustrations.
Tennyson's Birthday Book
Edited by Emily Shakespeare.
The Tariff.
The surplus, and the reduction of the tariff, are the political issues of to-day, and will remain the absorbing ones for many years. Very few persons know what the tariff rates are on the thousands of articles imported. This volume gives all the information wanted. Being reprinted from Governmental Authorized Reports, it is reliable. The index is the beauty of this little work; any person can, by turning to it, find in an instant of time the duty on every article. ”

“ When, therefore, you attempt to carry out the new tariff, which contains rates, I think, of fifty per cent., and some of one hundred per cent., and some even above one hundred per cent., you cannot collect those rates at Boston and New York and Philadelphia, while the men who want to consume the goods can get them by paying a duty of one-third as much. That is impossible. I presume the Senator from Rhode Island, and those who acted with him, did not intend the tariff, which has lately passed, to be a mere farce, a mere thing on paper, not to be acted out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The average is about forty-five per cent on the value. Prices are nearly uniform for the same classes of goods, whether of foreign or domestic manufacture. On imported articles the tariff is paid to the government; on domestic manufactures the duty is paid to the manufacturer. This system compels the poor man to contribute more than his fair proportion to protect the already rich manufacturer. ”

“ The importer who pays the tariff must include this amount in his costs, to which is added his normal mark-up in computing his selling price. Each additional handler or processor must do likewise, and if the material brought into the country is in raw form, requiring much handling and processing before it reaches the consumable stage, the various percentages added may come to more than the tariff. The consumer pays all. ”

“ If, in the pending tariff, sugar is placed upon the free list, we give to certain countries a free market for $95,000,000 of their products, while they are not asked to open their markets to the free admission of a single dollar of American products. ”

“ In adjusting the duties on imports to the object of revenue the influence of the tariff on manufactures will necessarily present itself for consideration. However wise the theory may be which leaves to the sagacity and interest of individuals the application of their industry and resources, there are in this as in other cases exceptions to the general rule. ”

“ JONES, of Nevada. Mr. President, so far as a tariff has the effect of reducing prices in any country, it is not by reason of the levying of any certain percentage of duty on the imported goods. The first effect of the tariff certainly always must be to raise prices. ”

“ The tariff, continuing the contract system in use by the Conference, provided for 'contract rates' for specified commodities, to be enjoyed by shippers who agree with the Conference, by written contract, to make all their shipments of those commodities by vessel of the Conference members for a specified period. The tariff rates on the same commodities for shippers not entering into contracts were $2 per ton higher than the contract rates. ”

“ This country never had a protective tariff in its whole history, before the enactment of which the people were not assured that this was the utmost measure of the demands that would be made, and after the enactment of which the clamor for more protection—higher duties—did not soon again begin. ”

“ Changes in general conditions of industry from causes quite apart from the tariff may result in shifting the proportions of imports that are dutiable so that the average rates go either up or down while the tariff law has remained unchanged on the statute book. ”

“ Nor can the worker in manufactures fail to understand that while a high tariff is claimed to be necessary to allow the payment of remunerative wages it certainly results in a very large increase in the price of nearly all sorts of manufactures, which in almost countless forms he needs for the use of himself and his family. ”