PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 329 



was gone through with to effect such a result the public was not 

 informed, but probably the collector of customs drew his warrant on 

 the Treasury, had the amount credited to his account, and then re- 

 credited to the Treasury. But, be this as it may, it is clear that the 

 Government, under the conditions above stated, paid the tax on its 

 imports ; that the tax may be regarded in the light of a penalty on the 

 Government for importing articles for its own use; and that the 

 action of Congress in authorizing the Treasury to appropriate money 

 for the payment of such taxes was a recognition or admission by that 

 body that a tax upon imports neither puts anything in nor takes any- 

 thing from the pocket of the foreigner. Does it not, moreover, invest 

 with a degree of comicality a law enacted by the Congress of the 

 United States for the purpose of taxing foreign importers, which 

 necessitated the enactment by it of another law appropriating money 

 to enable the United States to pay customs taxes every time on every- 

 thing that it may import for its own use ? * Finally, if the foreigner 



* In 1897 the merchant tailors of the United States, who ought to know something 

 about the incidence of a custom tax on imported clothing, united in a petition to Congress 

 asking that Americans returning from Europe be permitted to introduce only two suits of 

 foreign-made clothes free of duty ; and in support of their request they comment as follows 

 on a ruling of the Treasury in respect to this matter: " Under this ruling it was possible to 

 enter free of duty vast quantities of foreign-made garments which had never been actually 

 in use, and which were so imported solely because there exists a relative difference of at 

 least fifty per cent in values between the cost of made-up garments in the United States 

 and Europe, thus saving to the purchaser of garments abroad one half of their actual value 

 upon arrival within the United States duty free." But if the foreigner who made and sold 

 the goods in question was liable to pay the duty on dutiable clothing, and attended to his 

 duty, there would be no profit to the returning tourist in importing clothing free of duty. 

 It is further evident also that American tailors agree in opinion with Alexander Hamilton 

 that the consumers of imported articles pay the customs taxes. 



The records of the commercial relations between the United States and Canada are ex- 

 ceedingly instructive on this matter. They all show that for the products which the Cana- 

 dian sends to the United States, and on which somebody pays the duty, he receives exactly 

 the same price as for those products which he sends to England, on which nobody pays any 

 duty. This experience is exactly the same as that of the farmers of the Northwestern 

 States of the Federal Union, who usually get the same price for their wheat furnished to a 

 Minnesota flour mill, or for shipment to free-trade England, as to countries like France and 

 Germany, where heavy duties are assessed upon its import. The term " usually " is employed, 

 for producers in the United States and Canada alike do not always get as large a price for 

 the articles they export as for the same articles they sell to their fellow-countrymen. 

 Again, if it be true, as the advocates of extreme protection assert, that the foreign exporter 

 and not the consumer pays the duties on goods sent by him for sale in this country, how 

 does it happen that it is not true concerning the farm produce and live stock exported from 

 Canada ? And why should American farmers be exempt from this rule in sending their 

 grain to Europe ? Has anybody ever known of England buying American products any 

 cheaper in New York than France or Germany, and is it not also true that the French or 

 German or Italian consumer usually pays at least the amount of the duty levied by his Gov- 

 ernment more for American products than his English competitor has, whose imports are 

 subjected to no duty? During the period from 1854 to 1866 there was, under the reci- 



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