COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 437 



In the analysis which I shall present in this essay, I shall en- 

 deavor to prove how readily the remainder of the necessary con- 

 tributions of the people to the support of the civil government 

 may be collected wholly from taxes on articles of luxury or of 

 voluntary use, or on the finer textiles which are dependent on 

 style and fancy for their sale, without putting any tax of any kind 

 upon any commodity, either partly manufactured, crude or raw 

 material, which is necessary in the processes of our domestic in- 

 dustry. I shall endeavor to show how the removal of $40,000,000 

 to $50,000,000 of obnoxious taxes now imposed upon this class of 

 materials may open the way to products, sales, wages, and profits 

 amounting to at least $500,000,000 a year, which such a policy 

 would add to the resources of this nation, to be divided equitably 

 among the people in the form of additional wages and profits ; 

 thus promoting domestic industry, enlarging the home market, 

 raising both the rate and the purchasing power of wages, and in- 

 creasing profits. 



In the renewed discussion of the tariff question it has become 

 unpleasantly manifest that men are taking positions which may 

 soon lead to a very bitter conflict, in which contest mutual re- 

 crimination will cause distrust and may prevent any suitable re- 

 form of the tariff being carried into effect, as it ought to be, by 

 the common consent and governed by the common sense of all 

 men who are directly interested in the matter, and by the applica- 

 tion of that sound business judgment which should be applied to 

 this business question. 



It is very true that there are moral as well as political consid- 

 erations underlying the whole problem of the tariff. Such being 

 the case, it is a matter of duty for the citizen who will not be di- 

 rectly affected either in property or in person in any considerable 

 measure by any changes in our tariff legislation, yet to watch it 

 and to give it a true direction. The effect of tariff measures, con- 

 sidered from the money point of view in their burden or their 

 benefit, has, I believe, been very much overrated ; but the evil of 

 dependence upon legislation in the conduct of industry can not 

 be exaggerated. 



In the way in which this subject of tariff reform is now being 

 treated, whatever is done will be badly done ; therefore, great harm 



In this connection, however, it may well be remembered that the interest on our public 

 debt at its highest point amounted to more than $150,000,000. It is not probable that 

 pensions and interest will exceed, if they equal, this sum. This great obligation for interest 

 did not prove to be inconsistent with a large excess of revenue which has been so wisely 

 applied to the reduction of our debt. The attempt to spend the public money in order to 

 prevent the reduction of the tariff has probably culminated ; but the increase of the obli- 

 gation for pensions renders a scientific or common-sense treatment of the tariff question 

 yet more necessary than it was before. 



