COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 45 5 



Past and Present. The best summary is to be found in the little 

 book published in Chicago in 1884, by General M. M. Trumbull, 

 entitled The American Lesson of the Free Trade Struggle in Eng- 

 land. In this book will be found the whole record of the condi- 

 tion of England from 1838 to 1846, after the panic of 1836 which 

 originated in this country and spread to Great Britain had spent 

 its force, down to the culmination in 1846 of the measures which 

 Peel instituted but which were substantially completed by Glad- 

 stone in 1853. This history ought to be read by every man who 

 desires to make up his mind how to act in this country at the 

 present time. The logic of events is the same. We are repeating 

 history. We are suffering, so far as it is in the power of legisla- 

 tors to stop the progress of this country, from injudicious methods 

 of obstruction ; and we may make progress in agriculture and in 

 manufactures by " great leaps and bounds," as Gladstone put it, 

 whenever we choose to adopt the policy which will soon be brought 

 into action, whether we will or no, by the logic- of necessity. 



The basis of Peel's tariff reform in England was established 

 by Joseph Hume, who, being appointed chairman of the commit- 

 tee in the House of Parliament, made a report on the tariff of 

 Great Britain, which then covered about twelve hundred and fifty 

 specific articles, at an average rate of about twenty-eight per cent 

 on dutiable imports. In this report he first sorted imports, ac- 

 cording to their use, under four heads : 



Crude materials. 



Partly manufactured materials. 



Manufactured goods. 



Articles of the nature of a luxury, like wines and tobacco. 



It was a case of condition and not of theory which Sir Robert 

 Peel was called upon to meet when he took office. He met that 

 condition by discriminating in choosing the subjects of taxation 

 in the tariff which he presented, placing in the free list all the lit- 

 tle petty taxes or duties on which an agreement was readily made, 

 and then either making free partly manufactured goods or greatly 

 abating duties upon them, at the same time reducing the duties 

 on finished products except those of the fourth class, viz., those of 

 the nature of a luxury or voluntary use. 



I had become so much impressed and influenced by the success 

 of this method that, during the last few months of the adminis- 

 tration of Secretary Hugh McCulloch, I suggested to him to class 

 the imports of this country in a way corresponding to Hume's 

 method. I gave him my reasons somewhat in this way, that in 

 whatever manner, by whatever party, under whatever name the 

 reform of our tariff should at a future day be taken up, it would 

 of necessity be governed by the logic of the lines or classes on 

 which these imports might then be sorted. The suggestion was 



