444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Between these two lines of policy every voter will soon be 

 compelled to choose, and by making this choice a great change in 

 the relative influence and importance of one party or the other 

 will be brought about unless we can separate this question from 

 party politics. 



In order that this choice in each man's method of action may 

 be rightly made, it now becomes expedient to treat the method of 

 tariff reform simply as a business question and not as a party 

 question. Parties which were thrown out of all true relation to 

 the future by the issues of the past ought to be reorganized so as 

 to carry into effect the conclusions to which voters have been 

 brought by their convictions of right on the issues of the future. 

 When they are renovated in this manner one may expect a great 

 many men who are now holding prominent positions to be rele- 

 gated to private life. Their places will be taken by men who are 

 competent to apply reason, judgment, and common sense in their 

 methods of fiscal legislation, a faculty or capacity which has been 

 denied to many of those whom the circumstances of the past have 

 thrown up into positions of considerable prominence which they 

 have continued to hold up to the present time, but for which they 

 are incapable. 



When dealing with the tariff question in this way it is prob- 

 able that every intelligent man who is conversant with affairs 

 and who has given any attention to the reform of the tariff will 

 agree wholly or very nearly with the following statement : 



1. The present tariff is confused and inconsistent with itself in 

 many of its provisions. 



2. Some of its provisions which were especially intended to 

 promote specific domestic manufactures have been either so erro- 

 neously framed or so construed in the Treasury Department as to 

 discriminate against the very branches of. industry which they 

 were intended to promote. 



3. These badly framed or badly administered provisions of the 

 tariff acts promote undervaluation, evasions of duty, and fraud ; 

 but their worst effect is to discourage honest manufacturers and 

 merchants alike by the uncertainty which they cause as to the 

 future course of trade, as well as by the opportunities which they 

 give both to dishonest employers, importers, and unscrupulous 

 manufacturers to evade the laws. 



I may venture to relate a little story of how tariffs are made 

 and unmade. It is one of many incidents which made me a free- 

 trader in principle. 



I found an apparent inequality in the tariff act many years 

 since, adversely affecting a branch of industry in which I had in- 

 vested a few thousand dollars. I framed an amendment and sent 

 it to a prominent Congressman from Massachusetts, who was on 



