The New Tariff Swindle

From the Xevr York W orld. The little rascally tariff bill, asitpassed the House of Bepresentatives under a suspenaion of the rules, cóntains special legislation intended to fill the coffers of the few f'rora the pookets of the niany. 1. The new law enacts that the hitherto imported silk and cotton mixed goods now subject to a duty of 50 percent, shall in future pay 60 per cent. Then there ia at the end of the section the folio win g curious clause : " Provided, that tliis act shall not apply to goods, wares and merchandise which have as a component material thereof 25 per centurn or over of cottou, flax, wool or worsted." This is simply lor protest and appeal against appraisers' decisions and Treasury ruling. W hen the duties paid uuder protest amount to a niillion or so they will be retunded. As a rule the Treasury sticks as long as it can to the higher duties, in defiance of ipparent good logic ; and we point this out now and charge here that the House, in its ignorance of revenue tariff law, once more opens the door to this questionable refunding euterprise. The silk manufacturers, who are now going to try to make silk mixed goods, do not care whether the Treasury ultimately pays back wrong duties or not so long as they have the merchante annoyed and made subject to the caprica of the appraisers, who will exact the higher duty of sixty per centuin instead of tifty per centum. The gainers will be the silk manufacturers, enterprising lawyers, smart appraisers, and still smarter, tricky iniporters. The losers will be every wearer of silk and cotton mixed goods. '2. The duty on still wines is fixod at 50 cents a gallon. The importation amounts to 9,000,000 gallons, of which the average cost of 8,250,000 was 32 cents in Europe. The duty is now 25 cents, and this bill doubles it. The gainers are a few firms in New York, having a stock (amounting to 10,000 casks) of cheap winea imported at the present duty of 25 cents a gallon. This piece of class legislation will increase the value of their stock over $100,000. The losers are 6,000,000 of Gernians, Frenchmen and Italians who make cheap clarets and cheap Ehine wines their great beverage. A more outrageous piece of class legislation against foreignera cannot be imagined. 3. The present duty of five cents per pound on hops is doubled, and ten cents per pound ia enacted. The gainers are a few thousand hopgrowers in the United States, who produce 30,000,000 pounds annually. They receive an increase of protection amounting to $1,500,000. Of this amount 90 per centum comes out of the pockets of Germans who indulge in lager beer, and ten per cent. out of the poorer classes who have advanced in temperance far enough to exchange whisky for ale or lager. 4. On chromateand bi-cbromate of potash the present duty is 3 cents per pound, and the new duty passed by the House is 4 12 cents. The gainer is one single monopoly in Maryland and Pennsylvania. lts revenues are increased $250,000 annually. The losers comprise every man, woman and child that wears either a woolen or cotton fabric made in the United States which has any color in it. 5. Macaroni and vermicolli, now f ree, have a duty of three cents per pound. The gaiuers are leas than a dozen macaroni makers in New York and Boston, one of whom is a particular friend to the great man on the Ways and Means Committee. Amount gained, some $200,000. Losers - .Ëverbody who eats macaroni ia taxed for the benefit of these nine or ten firms. 6. Tin plates. - The increase of duty trom 15 per cent. ad valorem to 1 1-4 cents per pound, which means about 22 per cent. ad valorem, does not immediately benefit any home industry. But Kelly and Dawes have an eye to the future. Pennsylvania ia an iron State. Pennaylvania can do anything if she only gets protection. It is not maintained that tin plates can be suecessfully made in Pennsylvania. But, as oranges could be successfully grown in New Hampshire if we would oiily tax every foreign orange 10 cents each, ao it is claimed that tin plates could be produced in Pennsylvania if the foreign is highly taxed. Gainers - No one especially, only the embryo Pounsylvania tin-plate makers gain in hope. Losers - Every household that uses cooking utensils, every farmer that has ruit canned, every industry that cans ïsh, oysters and lobsters, and especially ;he great petroleum industry that ships ;he oil in tin oans ; also, the treasury, as we shall not import so much under the tiigher tariif as under a duty of one cent per pound. These are the ruain features of the little rascally Tariff bill just passed the House ind now trembling before the Senate ï"inance Committee of the Senato. There is not a single feature in this little bill that does not deserve denunciation, except perhaps the change of a duty froin ad valorem to specifio on sardines. The measure of tariff iniquity is so f uil that these few additional corrupt drops seem to overflow it. No dependance, no hope, can be placed on the present Congress for any reform that will conduce to the welfaro of the people. The following resolutions were adopted by the Fifth Section of the American Medical Association, at tho recent session in Detroit : llesohed, That in the view of the alarming prevalence and ill effects of iuteniperance with which none are so familiar as meuibers of the medical profession, and which has called forth from English physicians the voice of warning to the people of Great Britain concerning the use of alcoholic beverages, we, as members of the medical profession of the United States, unite in the declaration that we believe that alcohol should be classed with other powerful drugs ; that when prescribed medicinally it should be done with couscientious caution and a sonse of great responsibility. liesohed, That we are of the opinión that the use of alcoholic liquors as a beverage is productive of a large amount of physical and mental disease, that it entails appetites and enfeebled constitutions upon offspring, and that it is the cause of a large percentage of the crime and pauperism in our large cities and country. Mesoked, Thet we welcome any ohange in public sentiment that would confine the use of intoxicating liquors to tho uses of science, art and medicine. In Northern Georgia it is possible to live very well on a very little, jndging by the ourrent prices at Gainsville and other places. Por iustance : Butter, 15a 20c ; eggs, 10c. per dozen ; beef, 4a5c. per pound.