CONGRESS. (THE TARIFF BILL.) 



185 



" Now, sir. we find that the Senate bill has re- 

 turned very largely to specific taxes, and in 

 many cases in a considerable number of cases 

 in that worst and most insidious and prima facie 

 fraudulent form of taxes, a compound duty 

 made up of a specific tax and an ad valorem tax. 



' I have already stated that the amendments 

 proposed to this bill by the Senate are 634 

 in number. They are distributed as follow : 

 There are 52 amendments to the chemical 

 schedule ; there are 64 amendments to the iron 

 and steel schedule; there are 3 to the wood 

 schedule ; 5 to the sugar schedule ; 4 to the to- 

 bacco schedule ; 16 to the cotton schedule ; 19 

 to the flax schedule ; 30 to the woolen schedule ; 

 6 to the silk schedule ; 8 to the paper schedule ; 

 57 to the sundry schedule ; and 89 to the free 

 list ; in the latter case, almost always a transfer 

 of something left on the free list by the House 

 or put upon the free list by the House back to 

 the taxable list. 



"Now. sir, if there were any feeling in this 

 House when we came to deal with the tariff bill, 

 it was that we were dealing too conservatively. 

 There was scarcely any sentiment in this House, 

 except here and there upon some one particular 

 item, that did not make us feel that if we were 

 free to carry out the full mandate of the people 

 who sent us there, we would have sent to the 

 Senate a bill with a lower range of duties than 

 we ventured to suggest or pass in this House. 



" If these amendments were in the direction 

 of a reduction of the people's taxes, I am sure 

 that this House would agree very quickly to a 

 large number of them ; but while a few of them 

 in one or two important instances, for which I 

 must give due credit, are reductions, the great 

 mass of these changes are in the direction of in- 

 creasing the taxes upon the American people 

 and increasing the protection of the home mak- 

 ers of the articles thus taxed. This is especially 

 true in the sugar schedule. It is true in the 

 cotton schedule. It is true in the woolen sched- 

 ule. It is true in the glass schedule ; and so on 

 through all the important schedules where the 

 taxes bear most heavily on the people there is 

 an increase in taxation which will not, in my 

 judgment, increase proportionately the revenue 

 of the Government derived from those taxes." 



The motion to nonconcur was adopted, and a 

 conference committee was appointed. 



On July 19, Mr. Wilson, of the House con- 

 ferees, reported a disagreement with the Senate 

 conferees, and moved that the House further in- 

 sist upon its disagreement to the Senate amend- 

 ments. He alluded to the difficulties urged by 

 the Senate conferees, to the effect that the 

 amendments had been necessary in order to se- 

 cure the number of votes required to pass the 

 measure, and that the abandonment of any one 

 of them might lead to the breaking up of the 

 combination and prevent any tariff legislation. 

 He then entered upon a specific statement of 

 differences : 



" It remains for me simply to add, Mr. Speak- 

 er, that the chief points of controversy between 

 the representatives of the dominant party in the 

 two Houses, and thus between the conference 

 committees of the two Houses, was, first, the su- 

 gar schedule ; next, the duty upon iron ore and 

 upon coal, and the duty upon silver-lead ores 



and some of the duties in the woolen schedule, 

 and especially to some of the duties of the iron 

 and steel schedule, prominently those upon pig 

 iron, upon steel rails, and upon cutlery and 

 structural iron. 



" But the great difficulty in the pathway oi 

 an agreement has been a proper adjustment of 

 the sugar schedule. This House voted for free 

 sugar, raw and refined. It voted down the pro- 

 posal of the Committee on Ways and Means for 

 a gradual repeal of the bounty and a reduction 

 by more than one half of the duty upon refined 

 sugar. The Senate has reintroduced into the 

 proposed tariff bill a sugar schedule which, 

 whether truly or not, has been accepted by the 

 country, by the press of the country, by the people 

 of the country, as unduly favorable to the great 

 sugar .trust. It proposes a duty of 40 percent. 

 ad valorem on all grades of sugar, a differential 

 of one eighth of a cent upon refined sugar, in 

 addition to a differential of one tenth of a cent 

 on sugar imported from countries that pay an 

 export bounty upon their sugar. 



" There is reasonable ground for difference of 

 opinion among Democrats as to whether any 

 duty upon sugar should be placed in our tariff 

 bill or not. It has always been contended by 

 most of those who have been leaders in the great 

 tariff-reform movement in this country that, of 

 all the articles yielding large revenue, sugar was 

 the.one article upon which an ideal Democratic- 

 revenue tariff could be placed. 



" There would be substantial agreement, 1 

 think, with that position to-day in the Demo- 

 cratic party except for the fact that the framers 

 of the McKinley bill, in their zeal to cut off 

 taxation, the larger part of which went into the 

 public Treasury, in order that they might in- 

 crease taxes, the larger part of which went into 

 the pockets of their beneficiaries, placed raw 

 sugar upon the free list, gave a half-cent pro- 

 tection or six tenths of a cent in the case of 

 sugar imported from bounty-paying countries 

 on the refined sugar, and provided a bounty to 

 the producers of sugar in this country. By this 

 action the people have had a taste of untaxed 

 sugar, and it is difficult for us to get back to the 

 position originally occupied by the Democratic 

 party. 



" It is our hope that we shall give them, if we 

 succeed in passing any sort of a wise and proper 

 tariff-reform bill, a taste of so many other un- 

 taxed articles that protection can never raise its 

 head again in this country. 



" It is not possible, Mr. Speaker, for any one to 

 state accurately, on the proposed sugar schedule 

 of the Senate, what would be the amount of duty 

 upon refined sugar which would inure as a pro- 

 tection to the great refining company of this 

 country. Although I had not fully reached that 

 conclusion when the House bill was prepared, I 

 have no doubt myself to-day that the business of 

 sugar refining can be carried on as cheaply in 

 the United States as in any country in the 

 world ; and I have not the slightest doubt al- 

 though sincere tariff reformers differ with me 

 on that point that any differential duty what- 

 ever upon refined sugar is simply so much bounty 

 provided for the great monopoly of refining sugar 

 in this country. 



"If, therefore, the House conferees were pre- 



