Review of Reviews, 1/9/13 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



699 



who IS not, therefore, greatly ahirmeci at 

 the prospect of a partial trial of the 

 system. 



PROTECTION DOOMED. 



Mr. Stanwood likens the present posi- 

 tion of the United States to that of 

 JLngland when the Corn Laws were re- 

 pealed, and Free Trade replaced Protec- 

 tion. 



Not that the Americans "are immediately 

 to adopt free trade, or to diiscard, either 

 theoretically or practically, the policy of pj-<>- 

 tection. But the step whidli is in contempla- 

 tion is in the direction of free trade ; the 

 measure before C<)ngress, which is sure to 

 pass, is framed avowedly Avith the intention 

 of encouraging the importation of foreign 

 goods by placing domestic and foreign pro- 

 ducers on an equality, so far as the power to 

 compete freely is concerned ; and it is as 

 certain as any event in the future can be 

 that if the present experiment prove suc- 

 cessful, the system of protection of domestic 

 productions by a tariff on imports is doomed. 



MORE THAN TARIFF REVISION. 



An niteresting history of the ♦:ariff 

 as a persistent political issue since the 

 days of Washington precedes Mr. Stan- 

 wood's statement of his conclusions with 

 regard to the future worknig of Free 

 Trade. As the constitution denied to 

 Congress the right to levy direct taxa- 

 tion, excent in proportion to population, 

 customs duties were from the first the 

 main reliance of the Government for re- 

 venue. It is only in the ]:)resent year 

 that that prohibition has been removed. 



The Underwood Bill is nuicli more than a 

 revision of the tariff. Since the remi.s.-^ion of 

 the wool and sugar duties would involve a 

 loss of something like sixty million dollars 

 of revenue, the deficiency is to be made good 

 by the imposition of an income tax. That 

 is nrade potssible for the first time this year 

 by the adoption of an amendment of the 

 Constitution, the sixteenth, tlu> first change 

 made in that instrument since the years im- 

 mediatelv following the Civil Wnr. It is 

 to be a' Democratic, but not a democratic 

 tax, for it is to be levied only on incomes ex- 

 ceeding £800, and will therefor<> be paid by an 

 insignificant number of persons, estimated 

 by tlie committee at less than half a million, 

 or les-s than one-half of one per cent, of the 

 population. There is also a provision in the 

 Bill remitting fivo per cent, of the duties 

 on goods imported in American ships. This 

 seems to be '' protection " of a type quite as 

 objectionable as if it were given in the usual 

 foi-m. It is. moreover, in the opinion of 

 most persons who look at i\\<- plain nn^aning 

 of words, and not beneath them f()r a hnhlen 

 meaning, contrary to treaties with foreign 

 nations. 



THE PRESIDENT'S THREAT. 

 Two features of the Bill are especially 

 distasteful to many members of both 

 branches of Congress. Wool is to be 

 l)laced at once on the free list, a propo- 

 sition stoutly opposed by man}' Senators 

 and members from the West ; and sugar 

 is to be made free in three years. This 

 is strongly objected to b\' those inter- 

 ested in cane sugar in Louisiana, and 

 growers of beet-sugar in the North- 

 West. Formerly Presidents never ex- 

 pressed to Congress their intentions as 

 to the details of legislation in advance 

 of its being formally submitted for ap- 

 proval in the shape of an Act passed b)' 

 both Houses ; but 



Mr. "Wilson has done openly and boldly 

 what the recent Presidents liave done in 

 private conferences and in semi-official ro7»i- 

 luuniqui's. He has announced in almost so 

 may words that he will veto any Bill which 

 does not provide for free wool and free 

 sugar; and that ho will not treat as a regu- 

 lar D(>mocrat any mejnber who cons])ircs to 

 defeat a bill containing those provisions — 

 that is, that such a man shall have no recog- 

 nition in the disposal of patronage. 



WITS, NOT PROTECTION, NEEDED. 



President Wilson, in his speech to the 



two Houses of Congress on the second 



day of the session, explained what he 



conceived to be the principles on which 



the new tariff should be framed, in these 



words : — 



W(> mu.st abolish everytliing that bears 

 e\ en the semblance of privilege or of any 

 kiiul of artificial advantage, and put our 

 business men ami pr<Klucers under the stimu- 

 lation of a constant neice.<>sity to be efficient, 

 economical, and ent<'rprisiiig masters of com- 

 petitive supremac.v, better workers and mer- 

 chants than any in the world. Aside from 

 the duties laid upon articles which we do not 

 and probably cannot produce, and the duties 

 laid upon luxuries, merely for the sake of 

 the revenues they yield, the obje.ct of the 

 duties henceforth laid must be competitive 

 iompetition, the whetting of American Avits 

 by contest with the wits of the rest of the 

 world. 



Mr. Underwood, in his report that ac- 

 companied the Bill after it had been 

 considered by the caucus, said that the 

 Democrats had attempted 



To elim.inat<» iirotection of profits and to 

 cut off duties which enable inuustrial mana- 

 gers to exact a bonus for which no equi\a- 

 lent is ren<lered : 



To introduce* in <'very lin«> of industry a 

 competitiv(» tariff basis, providing for a sub- 

 stantial amount of importation, to the end 

 that no eoiK'eni shall l)e able to feel that it 



