ARGUMENT OF ELIHU ROOT. 1985 



I am not going to discuss protective tariffs. "We have a tariff 

 policy under our system of government. The national Government 

 is practically assigned to indirect revenues, the field of direct reve- 

 nues is practically occupied by the separate States for local pur- 

 poses, and in the raising of revenues by indirect means we have built 

 up a tariff, and we have applied to it a principle which largely obtains 

 now throughout the world, that we shall raise our revenue by putting 

 our duties upon such things as involve competition with our indus- 

 tries at home. 



I do not think we are open to the charge of being very selfish, be- 

 cause we have opened our shores and all the wealth of our country 

 to the millions of all the nations of Europe. We have given to them 

 freely, without thought of their competition, of all the benefits that 

 the richness of our land and the security of our Government could 

 afford; but we have said that in raising our necessary revenue we 

 will impose the tax so that it shall contribute to the food, the cloth- 

 ing, the prosperity of those who come to us. And I submit that 

 there ought not to be a construction put upon this treaty which will 

 deprive us of the benefit of it unless we are willing to buy the benefit 

 over again, by changing the general fiscal policy of our Government 

 for the benefit of the Government of Newfoundland. 



I pass to another proposition, passing off the narrow field of the 

 particular situation in which we are involved in Newfoundland 

 through the execution of this purpose that could be executed only 

 by destroying our treaty right, to a more general consideration. It is 

 that this situation is the situation that must always be anticipated 

 in the case of grants of this character I mean of this generic char- 

 acter; grants which constitute a perpetual burden granted to one 

 country upon the territory of another. 



A question has been raised as to why such grants need exemption 

 from the power of municipal regulation and limitation by municipal 

 legislation, while trading rights do not. It is because of the in- 

 grained, innate distinction between the two. Trading rights are 

 temporary. The vast number of trading treaties all, so far as I 

 know, are temporary. When circumstances change they expire. 

 They are made for such periods that no change is to be anticipated. 

 One can make an agreement for 10 years, 5 years, or perhaps for 15 or 

 20 years, forecasting what the course of development may be. and with 

 reasonable certainty>that no change of conditions will make a stipula- 

 tion that is advantageous to one's country to-day disadvantageous 

 before the period ends. They are reciprocal and mutually 

 1202 beneficial. An undue restriction upon one side immediately 

 meets with some restriction upon the other side ; and the advan- 

 tage that is obtained by one country cannot be restricted, limited, 

 modified, changed, taken away, in whole or in part, without a similar 



