The Tariff Is A Tax

rerhaps no five words in the Eriglish language so inflame the Republican journalist as these: 'The tariff is a ía.v." . ïhey have denounced tlie phrase, derided it, denied it, but it is an argument in itself that goes to the root of this whole controversy and it sticks in the public mind. But even Republicana are forced at times to admit that the tariff is a tax, and to defend it because it is a tax. Some importers have resisted the collection of duties uuder tlie McKinley bill, and one of their counts is that it provides a bounty for the production of sugar, for which bounty no authority can be found in the constitution. Solicitor General Taft, arguing for the Government, in sists that the bounty is only a change in the method of "protection" the sugar producers; a cliange from a tariff to a bounty. Reviewing our tariff liistory at some lengtli, lie concludes: "The principie"- of a protective tariff - "thus established, necessarily justifies bomities, for in the begimiingof the operation of a proteetive tariff the amount of duty levied is a bounty to the domestic nutnufacturer, and it is with a view to such a benefit to liim that it is levied. The sugar duties have alwavs had the effect oí' a bounty to domestic sugar producers' Whether or not legally the Solicitor General is right, the court will determine, but practically, commercially and economically, the amount o: duty levied is a bounty to the domestic manufacture!. A duty is a bounty; thaf is, it is a taxwhichyieldsabounty to the domestic manufacturer. We refer our Republican contemporaries to Solicitor General Taft for instruction on this point, merely repeating what we have said before, that