COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 591 



COMMON SENSE APPLIED TO THE TARIFF 



QUESTION. 



By EDWARD ATKINSON. 

 II. 



« TTTE are at the parting of the ways." Any one who takes the 

 V V ground that the main object which should be kept in view 

 in placing taxes upon foreign imports may rightly be an attempt 

 to establish any and every branch of industry, great and small, 

 without regarding the use to which imports are to be put, and 

 without any consideration of the temporary obstruction to other 

 branches of industry which must follow any interference with 

 the natural course of trade, may take his own way ; he will have 

 no further interest in this essay. Such men may separate them- 

 selves under the guidance of their chosen leaders, for such influ- 

 ence upon the question of taxation as they may be capable of ex- 

 erting. Their position is a very plain one, and it has been rightly 

 named by its chief exponent, the chairman of the Committee of 

 Ways and Means, the method of "protection with incidental rev- 

 enue" May it not be held that this method is inconsistent with 

 the public welfare and that it is contrary to the very principle of 

 law which has been established by the Supreme Court of the 

 United States in the case of the Loan Association vs. Topeka ? 



In this case, Justice Miller, on behalf of the court, stated this 

 fundamental principle of law as follows : " To lay with one hand 

 the power of the Government on the property of the citizen, and 

 with the other bestow it on favored individuals to aid private 

 undertakings, and to build up private enterprises, is none the less 

 robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called 

 taxation. This is not legislation ; it is a decree under legislative 

 forms. . . . Beyond a cavil there can be no lawful tax which is 

 not laid for a public purpose." 



I think it must be clear to every unprejudiced mind that the 

 theory of Mr. McKinley, of "protection ivith incidental revenue" 

 is in fact forbidden by this dictum of the Supreme Court. It can 

 only be justified by a legal subterfuge, to wit, that a public pur- 

 pose or necessity exists which justifies doing away with the 

 revenue duty on sugar, thereby depriving the Government of all 

 revenue from that source, and continuing to tax the people in 

 order to pay a bounty to the sugar-planters. The bounty to 

 sugar-planters must be justified, if justified at all, upon the 

 ground that public necessity requires the production of sugar 

 within the limits of our own country, although sugar can be 

 procured at less cost in exchange for wheat, cotton, and oil. If 



