Republican Inconsistency

In opening the tariff debate in the senate for the republican side last Tuesday, Senator Allison, of Iowa, indulged in the usual flapdoodle about the destruction of the protected infant industries which will surely follow the enactment into law of the tariff bill now pending in the senate and the trouble to be expected from the change of specific to ad valorum duties. He agonizes greatly over the outlook for the poor infants that are now maintaining a powerful lobby at Washington to corrupt legtslation by means of the millions of illgotten profits realized from protective In order to support the republican position of the present, however, he is obligedto be inconsistant with himself and false to his previous utterances on the same question as is shown by the following from the Chicago Herald: "There is not an industry in the country," lie said, "which would not 9e injured by the bill, while many of them would be strangled to death"- the poor little infants. The tariff of 1833, he said, reduced duties to a 20 per cent. basis, but provided that the reduction shouldbe made a little at a time during a period of ten years. Buf'this revolutiouary measure proposes to accomplish the reduction in one year, abruptly and without notice." Astothe other objection he declared that the ad valorem system was "a tariff of igïorance and not of intelligence." The Iowa senator did not mention the fact that the tariff of 1846 reduced the high protective taxes of 1842 'abruptly and without notice,"' and ;hat it svvept all specific duties away at a stroke and substituted ad valorem duties. It was in both respects a far more radical and "revolutionary" neasure than the one now pending. But Mr. Allison knows that these statements are true, and that he himself once admitted that thelow ad orem tariff of 1846, and the still lower one of 1857, were the reverse of min-! ous to our industries. On a former occasiin, when he was a member of the house of representativos, he spoke as follows: "The tariff of 1846, although confessedly and professedly a tariff for revenue, wns, so f ar as regards all the great interests of the country, as perfect a tariff as an y tliat we have ever liad. When we compare the growth of the country f rom 1840 to 1850 willi the growth of the country f rom 1850 to 1860, the latter decade being entirely under the taiïff of 1846, or the amended and greatly reduced tariff of 1857, we find that the increase in our wealili between 1850 and 1860 was equivalent to 126 per cent, while it was ! only 64 per cent between 1840 and 1850, I four years of which decade were undeiA the tariff of 1842, known as a high protective tariff. Our industries were generously prosperous in 1860, withtheexception, possibly. of the iron industry. This was the statement of Mr. Morrill, of Vermom, on this floor during the discussions of the tariff of 1864." Procèeding, Mr. Allison quoted from a memorial addressed to congress by steel manufacturéis in 1860 as follows: 'It was reserved to Pittsburg to bring about the first substantial and enduring successin the year 1860; and, encouraged by our example, numerous establishments have sprung into existence, as already indlcated in this paper." Cormnenting on this, Mr. Allison said. "This shows tliat under the revenue tariff of 1857, which imposed in ad valorem duty of 12 per cent on steel, a substantial success was achieved in the steel manufacture in 1860. Thus Mr. Allison in 1870 demolished the assertionand sophisms of Mr. Allison in 1894. It is only necessary to add tliat the pending bill puts duties on steel rangiág from 22Í to 35 per cant, instead of reducing them to the uniform 12 per cent. rate, whicli existed when "the iirst substantial and enduring success" in steel manufactures was achieved in 1860.