Record Data
Original source
New York Dairy Tribune
Newspaper: Publication
Carlisle American
Newspaper: Headline
Tariff Revision
Newspaper: Page(s)
Page 2
Newspaper: Column
6
Type
Newspaper
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Joanne Williams
Transcription date
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
The Following strong and able article we copy from the New York Dairy Tribune. The suggestions to the Committee of Ways and Means cantain [contain] so much truth and good practical common sense that we hope they will be well considered by that Committee,
“The House Committee of Ways and Means having worked off a considerable share of its annual or routine of business, is about, we understand, to take up the subject of the Tariff, and act decisively thereon. We venture therefore a few suggestions to the able and practical majority of that Committee, which we trust will at least be candidly considered.
It can hardly be necessary at this day to say that we favor the Protection of Home Industry – decided ample Protection. We feel as certain that, had the Tariff of 1828 been permitted to stand unchanged and unthreatened to this day, our country would have been immensely richer, stronger, more populous than it now is, as we do that a farm located just beside a great city is worth more than just such a farm located in central Siberia, Nebraska, or Paraguay. Nay, more: we feel certain that, had the Tariff of 1828 been allowed to stand till [til] this day, we should have made more Iron in 1859, and supplied our needs of that article at lower prices, than any other nation on the globe; So with Hardware, Glass, Pottery, Wollens [Woolens], and scores more of necessaries of life, which we are now buying of Europe, by the millions’ worth, and paying at least two bushels of grain where one would suffice had we our workshops in the New rather than the Old World. If it were in our power to impose duties specific so far as may be, on every species of manufacture imported, fully equal to one hundred per cent, on the value of the goods, we would do it with the greatest alacrity, confident that we should thereby increase the wealth of our country to the extent of at least One Hundred Millions per annum.
But wise men consider not merely what they would but also what they can do. And it is on this point that we ask the attention of the Committee of Ways and Means.
We utterly scont [scorn] the idea of getting up a Tariff Bill to be defeated in the Senate, and thus make up an issue whereon to go to the country. It may be impossible to avoid such a defeat and such an issue, but let them be avoided if possible. It is our plain duty to submit a bill which the Senate will not, dare not reject, if we can do so consistently with the great ends of providing adequate revenue and affording some relief to the depressed and suffering branches of our National Industry. Suppose, for instance, that it were possible to carry a Tariff that would impose duties of $10 per tun [ton] on Bar and $5 on Pig Iron, would it be wise or politic to reject the intsallment [installment] of justice in order to go to the country on a demand for more? We are sure it would not be.
We hear, moreover, that an effort is to be made to impose a specific duty of $1 per tun [ton] or over on Mineral Coal. For what? Is there a miner so ignorant as not to know that Coal is not and cannot be imported to any material extent – that Coal is to day cheaper in our own country than in almost any other?- Would a duty of even $5 per tun [ton] on imported Coal increase the aggregate demand for American Coal by even three per cent? Not, in our judgement [judgment], by one per cent, to the average price of the Coal mined in this country.
Then what is the harm of such a duty?
We answer, just here: The poor and ignorant consumers of Coal- who are at least one hundred to every one engaged in producing or selling it, would be told by knavish or stupidly malignant demagog’s [demagogues] that the ‘Black Republicans’ had imposed a heavy tax on their fuel to enrich a few coal mining Nabobs;- and they would make a party capital out of such assertions, even though Coal were to be lower under that tariff than ever before. But let a violent Equinoctial Storm next September interrupt our communications with the great coal fields and thus raise the price of Coal $1 to $2 per tun [ton], just as next Winter and the Presidential election were coming on, and hundred of thousands would actually believe that the now enhancement of duty on this necessary of life was wholly or mainly the cause of this advance – that a “Black Republican” House had thus aided certain Pennsylvania monopolists of coal mines to grind the faces of the poor. As there is no necessity for, so there would be no safety, no wisdom in wantonly braving this serious peril.
What the coal-producing interest really needs, as intelligent men surely do know – is an expanded and eager market, such as the reinvigoration of our now depressed Manufacturers alone can secure them. --- Specific duties of ever [even] $5 per tun [ton] on Pig and $10 on Bar Iron, with corresponding impost on Wares and Fabrics, with coal absolutely Free, would be far better for the coal interest than $100 per tun [ton] on Coal with no improvement as to the Metals and Fabrics. Let us make our Iron and Steel Cloths and Wares mainly at home, and the market for our Coal will immensely expand even though the foreign be admitted Free.
But we will not multiply examples nor arguments. Let the foregoing suffice. Let us have all possible improvement in the Tariff, but do not attempt to drive the wedge buttend [butt end] foremost, nor lose all in attempting to grasp to [too] much. Bear it in mind that an improved Tariff must be carried, if at all, by the aid of Members who are theoretically Free Traders, and who will only vote with us because something must evidently be done. To make the bill odious to this class is to ensure its destruction.
“The House Committee of Ways and Means having worked off a considerable share of its annual or routine of business, is about, we understand, to take up the subject of the Tariff, and act decisively thereon. We venture therefore a few suggestions to the able and practical majority of that Committee, which we trust will at least be candidly considered.
It can hardly be necessary at this day to say that we favor the Protection of Home Industry – decided ample Protection. We feel as certain that, had the Tariff of 1828 been permitted to stand unchanged and unthreatened to this day, our country would have been immensely richer, stronger, more populous than it now is, as we do that a farm located just beside a great city is worth more than just such a farm located in central Siberia, Nebraska, or Paraguay. Nay, more: we feel certain that, had the Tariff of 1828 been allowed to stand till [til] this day, we should have made more Iron in 1859, and supplied our needs of that article at lower prices, than any other nation on the globe; So with Hardware, Glass, Pottery, Wollens [Woolens], and scores more of necessaries of life, which we are now buying of Europe, by the millions’ worth, and paying at least two bushels of grain where one would suffice had we our workshops in the New rather than the Old World. If it were in our power to impose duties specific so far as may be, on every species of manufacture imported, fully equal to one hundred per cent, on the value of the goods, we would do it with the greatest alacrity, confident that we should thereby increase the wealth of our country to the extent of at least One Hundred Millions per annum.
But wise men consider not merely what they would but also what they can do. And it is on this point that we ask the attention of the Committee of Ways and Means.
We utterly scont [scorn] the idea of getting up a Tariff Bill to be defeated in the Senate, and thus make up an issue whereon to go to the country. It may be impossible to avoid such a defeat and such an issue, but let them be avoided if possible. It is our plain duty to submit a bill which the Senate will not, dare not reject, if we can do so consistently with the great ends of providing adequate revenue and affording some relief to the depressed and suffering branches of our National Industry. Suppose, for instance, that it were possible to carry a Tariff that would impose duties of $10 per tun [ton] on Bar and $5 on Pig Iron, would it be wise or politic to reject the intsallment [installment] of justice in order to go to the country on a demand for more? We are sure it would not be.
We hear, moreover, that an effort is to be made to impose a specific duty of $1 per tun [ton] or over on Mineral Coal. For what? Is there a miner so ignorant as not to know that Coal is not and cannot be imported to any material extent – that Coal is to day cheaper in our own country than in almost any other?- Would a duty of even $5 per tun [ton] on imported Coal increase the aggregate demand for American Coal by even three per cent? Not, in our judgement [judgment], by one per cent, to the average price of the Coal mined in this country.
Then what is the harm of such a duty?
We answer, just here: The poor and ignorant consumers of Coal- who are at least one hundred to every one engaged in producing or selling it, would be told by knavish or stupidly malignant demagog’s [demagogues] that the ‘Black Republicans’ had imposed a heavy tax on their fuel to enrich a few coal mining Nabobs;- and they would make a party capital out of such assertions, even though Coal were to be lower under that tariff than ever before. But let a violent Equinoctial Storm next September interrupt our communications with the great coal fields and thus raise the price of Coal $1 to $2 per tun [ton], just as next Winter and the Presidential election were coming on, and hundred of thousands would actually believe that the now enhancement of duty on this necessary of life was wholly or mainly the cause of this advance – that a “Black Republican” House had thus aided certain Pennsylvania monopolists of coal mines to grind the faces of the poor. As there is no necessity for, so there would be no safety, no wisdom in wantonly braving this serious peril.
What the coal-producing interest really needs, as intelligent men surely do know – is an expanded and eager market, such as the reinvigoration of our now depressed Manufacturers alone can secure them. --- Specific duties of ever [even] $5 per tun [ton] on Pig and $10 on Bar Iron, with corresponding impost on Wares and Fabrics, with coal absolutely Free, would be far better for the coal interest than $100 per tun [ton] on Coal with no improvement as to the Metals and Fabrics. Let us make our Iron and Steel Cloths and Wares mainly at home, and the market for our Coal will immensely expand even though the foreign be admitted Free.
But we will not multiply examples nor arguments. Let the foregoing suffice. Let us have all possible improvement in the Tariff, but do not attempt to drive the wedge buttend [butt end] foremost, nor lose all in attempting to grasp to [too] much. Bear it in mind that an improved Tariff must be carried, if at all, by the aid of Members who are theoretically Free Traders, and who will only vote with us because something must evidently be done. To make the bill odious to this class is to ensure its destruction.