UNITED STATES, FINANCES OF THE. 



789 



of silk ; 5-84 per cent, on manufactures of cot- 

 ton; 3'91 per cent, on iron and manufactures 

 thereof ; 4 per cent, on steel and its manufact- 

 ures; and3'62 per cent, on flax and its manu- 

 factures. The aggregate amouni of duties col- 

 lected on these seven commodities and classes 

 of commodities was $134,557,435.69, and 64*18 

 per cent, of the total amount. 



The free goods entered in the fiscal year 

 1882 amounted to $210,721,981, and the dutia- 

 ble goods to $505,491,967, making the total 

 entries $716,213,948, as compared with $700,- 

 829,673 in 1883. 



The following statement shows the amount 

 of duties collected during each of the last two 

 fiscal years on the six commodities yielding the 

 greatest revenue : 



The Reduction of Taxation. The report of the 

 Tariff Commission, appointed under the act of 

 May 15, 1882, with a schedule of the changes 

 in the rates of duties recommended by it, was 

 submitted to Congress Dec. 4, 1882, the be- 

 ginning of the second session of the Forty-sev- 

 enth Congress. It was referred to the Commit- 

 tee on Finance in the Senate and to the Com- 

 mittee on Ways and Means in the House. The 

 commission said that the average reduction in 

 duties at which it had aimed was not less than 

 20 per cent., and that in its opinion it would 

 reach 25 per cent. The Ways and Means Com- 

 mittee, on Jan. 16, 1883, reported a " bill to im- 

 pose duties on imports and for other purposes/' 

 This measure was based on the commission's 

 schedule of proposed duties, but made a less 

 reduction in the duties on many important ar- 

 ticles than that recommended by the commis- 

 sion. A computation made on the importa- 

 tions for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1882, 

 showed that the reduction proposed by the 

 committee would amount to $20,855,799.08 on 

 $215,395,628.58 duties collected in that year, 

 or less than 10 per cent. This bill was, how- 

 ever, never completed by the House. Its con- 

 sideration was abandoned on the 17th of Feb- 

 ruary, the House having, after a long and tedi- 

 ous discussion, passed upon only 45 of its 140 

 pages. In the mean time the same question 

 was being considered by the Senate. A bill to 

 reduce internal revenue taxation had passed 

 the House at the preceding session, and was 

 still pending in the Senate. This bill, having 

 been recommitted to the Committee on Fi- 

 nance, was reported on January 4th with an 

 amendment embracing an entire revision of 

 the tariff, based like the House bill on the com- 

 mission's report. The reduction of revenue 

 which the bill would cause was estimated by 



the chairman of the committee (Senator Mor- 

 rill) at $45,049,000 in the duties on imports 

 and $34,790,324 on internal revenue, includ- 

 ing national-bank taxes, making a total reduc- 

 tion of $79,839,324.* This bill, having been 

 exhaustively debated, item by item, by the Sen- 

 ate, and amended in many particulars, passed 

 that body on the 20th of February, and was 

 sent to the House. The House adopted an 

 amendment of its rules, declaring that it should 

 be in order at any time during the remainder 

 of the session by a majority vote to suspend the 

 rules, declare a disagreement with the Senate 

 amendments, and ask for a committee of con- 

 ference on the bill ; and that, if that motion 

 should fail, the bill should remain on the Speak- 

 er's table, unaffected by the failure. This 

 proposition was opposed by a minority of the 

 House, who desired an opportunity to vote in 

 favor of concurring in the Senate amendments, 

 which provided for a greater reduction of du- 

 ties than the unfinished House bill, and the 

 Democratic members generally refrained from 

 voting on it. The House non-concurred in the 

 Senate amendments, and asked for a committee 

 of conference on the 27th of February. The 

 conference committee having submitted its re- 

 port, the bill passed both houses and became a 

 law, March 3, 1883. The changes made by the 

 conference committee in the bill as it passed 

 the Senate were mainly in the direction of an 

 increase of rates. Among other- changes the 

 duty on iron-ore was raised from 50 cents a 

 ton, as proposed by the Senate, to 75 cents ; on 

 pig-iron and wrought and cast scrap-iron, from 

 $6.50 a ton of 2,240 pounds to T % of a cent a 

 pound; on steel railway bars, weighing more 

 than 25 pounds to 1>he yard, from T V of a cent 

 a pound to $17 a ton; on iron or steel T-rails, 

 weighing not over 25 pounds to the yard, from 

 ^_ to T V of a cent a pound ; on steel not oth- 

 erwise provided for, from 30 to 45 per cent, 

 ad valorem ; on manufactures of metal not oth- 

 erwise provided for, from 35 to 45 per cent. ; 

 on sugar above No. 13 and not above No. 16, 

 Dutch standard, from 2 to 2| cents a pound ; 

 on books, pamphlets, etc., from 15 to 25 per 

 cent. ; on salt in packages, from 10 to 12 

 cents a hundred pounds ; and on salt in bulk, 

 from 6 to 8 cents a hundred pounds. Books 

 in a foreign language were taken from the 

 free list and made subject to 25 per cent, 

 duty. The chairman of the Senate Finance 

 Committee, in explaining the conference report, 

 said that if there should be no greater importa- 

 tions than in the year before, the aggregate 

 reduction of taxation under the bill would 

 probably be more than $75,000,000 a year. 

 The report of the House conference commit- 

 tee said that the bill provided for an estimated 

 aggregate reduction of $67,000,000, of \vhich 

 it was estimated that about $35,000,000 would 



* The bill was afterward so amended, by the cutting down of 

 the tax on tobacco in all its forms to one half the former rare, 

 as to increase the reduction in internal revenue taxes, includ- 

 ing the tix on the capital and deposits of national banks, to 

 about $43,000,0 JO. 



