THE BEST METHODS OF TAXATION. 745 



familiar scheme for reciprocity treaties, under which moderate con- 

 cessions in some of the duties could be made, was retained; but France 

 was the only power that could have an object in seriously entertain- 

 ing the proposition to enter into a negotiation. No real reduction 

 in duties could be given to Germany or any other country, and it 

 has become a recognized fact that Germany does not hesitate to seize 

 an opportunity to exclude the products of the United States, and on 

 the same grounds as support the high duties in the American tariff. 

 The system of drawbacks has ceased to be of much moment in our 

 customs policy, and in the export interest in canned goods finds its 

 chief exercise. Xor does a privilege to manufacture in bond affect 

 more than one article of importance — ores of lead containing silver. 

 No matter how it is regarded, the tariff of 1897 was not framed for 

 revenue, and in experience has not proved sufficiently productive to 

 meet its share of the expenditures of Government. The animus of 

 its sponsors in attaining the immediate political object sacrificed the 

 more important and permanent object of revenue. 



Were the true object of customs duties — revenue — to be kept in 

 view in tariff legislation, it would be a simple matter to devise a 

 measure that would be satisfactory and highly productive of revenue. 

 In the fifteen hundred or more articles enumerated in the tariff 

 schedules, more than fourteen hundred are nonproductive, or yield so 

 small a return as to have in the aggregate no appreciable effect on 

 the total receipts. The number left after so large an exclusion can 

 be still further reduced without reducing the revenue one tenth; 

 and it is from a small number of articles, hardly twenty-five, that the 

 great part of the customs revenue is obtained. By reducing the rates 

 of duties on these to a point of highest revenue efficiency, at which the 

 import is not interfered with and yet not encouraged, a higher re- 

 turn could be had than from the existing complicated, overloaded, 

 and political compilation of duties, usually imposed for any reason 

 other than what they will bring into the treasury. 



When, therefore, the best methods of Federal taxation are 

 broached, the reform of the tariff stands first in importance. It is 

 necessary to bring it more into line with the industrial conditions of 

 to-day, which call for foreign markets rather than a domestic or 

 closed market; and for a liberal commercial policy in place of one that 

 regards the products of other countries, whether imported in the 

 crude or manufactured forms, as constituting a menace to American 

 labor and American interests. It calls for a systematic and intelli- 

 gent revision, which shall throw out such, duties as are no longer of 

 service even for protection, and to reduce those that are hostile to the 

 products of other countries and bear in themselves the seeds of re- 

 prisals in the future. Now that the United States is going into the 



VOL. LIV. 56 



