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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ive tariff men, or advocates of a tariff for reve- 

 nue only, I take it for granted that you all 

 agree that in some manner the present tariff 

 should be reviewed and more or less modified. 



" For the last twenty years, subject to some 

 slight partial modifications, this country has 

 been conducting its business under the present 

 tariff laws. As to its character and effect I 

 shall speak later. At present I have only this 

 to say, that the interests of the country have 

 themselves become greatly modified, and in 

 some respects radically changed, in the course 

 of these twenty years. New industries have 

 sprung up, and modifications of old industries 

 have come into existence. New inventions 

 have been applied in many arts, and thousands 

 of new influences bearing upon the question of 

 relative protection, upon the rates of duty re- 

 quired, upon the cost of production, and com- 

 bination of materials, have arisen not only in 

 America but in Europe. The conditions of 

 competition between this country and Europe 

 have consequently materially changed. This 

 could not be helped. Changes are always oc- 

 curring in progressive countries, not only in 

 mechanical appliances but in the products of 

 industry put upon the markets of the world. 



" These changes are elements that always 

 enter into a question of revision of any tariff 

 system every few years in the progress of any 

 nation ; and every nation is obliged from time 

 to time to revise its system of revenue, owing 

 to the changed conditions which have come 

 into existence, and have modified the character 

 of the results obtained under the previous con- 

 ditions. A striking proof of the necessity in 

 our own legislation is found in the fact stated 

 in the other House, that in four years eighteen 

 hundred cases for the decision of the Secretary 

 of the Treasury have been submitted to him 

 arising under our present system. Many cases 

 have been decided by the courts. All this 

 shows the need of revision of law based on in- 

 vestigation of the actual present condition of 

 our industries and securing greater precision. 



" Gentlemen have often said to us : ' Oh, you 

 do not mean anything by this tariff commission 

 except delay ; you do not want to touch the 

 tariff or modify it at all ; you have held this 

 policy before us for one, two, or three years 

 for no other purpose than to shield the manu- 

 facturers against a revision of the tariff.' Mr. 

 Chairman, I take this occasion to say that this 

 allegation does not come with the proper grace 

 from our friends on the other side, who had it 

 in their power in the last Congress to have al- 

 lowed that bill to be taken from the Speaker's 

 table and acted upon, as was desired by every 

 member on this side of the House. Had that 

 been done, then by January of this year a re- 

 port would have been before you, a bill pre- 

 pared, and your revision of the tariff would 

 have been now in full progress. 



" We have seen in the resistance offered to- 

 day the same course pursued by our free-trade 

 and revenue-tariff members against taking up 



the question at ah 1 . I ask them to look the 

 facts in the face, that this side of the House 

 has been pressing the matter for consideration ; 

 that instead of using this proposition as a 

 screen to prevent any action we have tried to 

 hasten it ; while for three Congresses our Dem- 

 ocratic majority have utterly failed to give 

 anything in the way of a revision in the ordi- 

 nary form. It must therefore be evident that 

 if we can do anything at all in this Congress it 

 must be through this bill, and by the aid of a 

 commission including neither Senators nor Rep- 

 resentatives, but only men who can give their 

 whole time to the subject, and who can visit 

 the seats of our great industries." 



Mr. Hewitt, of New York: "Mr. Chairman, 

 I am opposed to the bill creating a tariff com- 

 mission, for the reason that it will make delay, 

 and delay is dangerous in the present perilous 

 condition of general business. We are now 

 prosperous, but our prosperity will continue 

 only so long as there is an adequate market for 

 our products. At present we have a foreign 

 market chiefly for raw materials such as food 

 products, cotton, petroleum, and tobacco. For 

 our manufactured products the markets of the 

 world are practically closed against us closed 

 because it is impossible to sell our goods in the 

 open markets of the world in competition with 

 other manufacturing nations. The reason of 

 this is, mainly, that our tariff legislation Las 

 erected artificial barriers to the free introduc- 

 tion of raw materials, and by the imposition of 

 unwise taxes we are handicapped at the very 

 outset in the commercial race. These obstruc- 

 tions can not be removed too soon. They are 

 well known, and can be enumerated without 

 difficulty. We tax food, of which we are the 

 great exporters; we tax wool, which is the 

 foundation of a vast industry : we tax bitu- 

 minous coal, iron-ore, and scrap-iron, which lie 

 at the base of the great iron and steel indus- 

 try; we tax copper-ores, alcohol, and oils, and 

 numerous chemicals, without which many 

 branches of industry can not exist. 



"Having thus created an artificial system, 

 we find it impossible to compete with Great 

 Britain and France and Germany, whose in- 

 dustry stands upon the firm and natural basis 

 of free raw materials. This defect in our rev- 

 enue system could be remedied by a joint reso- 

 lution in one week, and the Committee on 

 Ways and Means could then take as much time 

 as might be needed to consider and adjust the 

 infinite detail involved in the reconstruction of 

 a tariff covering 2,500 articles. Unless a rem- 

 edy be speedily applied, the industry of this 

 country will be surfeited by the excess of 

 products for which it can find no market. 

 There is a limit to the amount of food which 

 we can sell abroad, and it is a great mistake to 

 suppose that Europe can not raise food in com- 

 petition with America. The question is not, 

 as many seem to suppose, so much the relative 

 cost of production, as the amount of rent 

 which can be collected from the farmer in Eu- 



