store in an emergency, without waste or extravagance, such money to its place among the people.

If such an emergency arises there now exists no clear and

Grover Cleveland-"What a mess you have got this into by leaving it wound so long. There are so many snarls and knots that it will take much longer than you think to get this yarn to rights."

Cartoon by Thomas Nast

undoubted executive power of relief. standing the payment of which we upon.

There are no bonds outhave the right to insist

In the present state of legislation the only pretence of any existing executive power to restore, at this time, any part of our surplus revenues to the people by its expenditure consists

in the supposition that the Secretary of the Treasury may enter the market and purchase the bonds of the Government not yet due, at a rate of premium to be agreed upon. The only provision of law from which such a power could be derived is found in an appropriation bill passed a number of years ago; and it is subject to the suspicion that it was intended as temporary and limited in its application, instead of conferring a continuing discretion and authority. If it is deemed wise to lodge in the Secretary of the Treasury the authority in the present juncture to purchase bonds, it should be plainly vested, to relieve him from undue responsibility.

Our scheme of taxation, by means of which needless surplus is taken from the people and put into the public treasury, consists of a tariff or duty levied upon importations from abroad and internal revenue taxes levied upon the consumption of tobacco and spirituous and malt liquors. It must be conceded that none of the things subjected to internal-revenue taxation are, strictly speaking, necessaries; there appears to be no just complaint of this taxation by the consumers of these articles, and there seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden without hardship to any portion of the people.

But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended. These laws, as their primary and plain effect, raise the price to consumers of all articles imported and subject to duty by precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus the amount of the duty measures the tax paid by those who purchase for use these imported articles. Many of these things, however, are raised or manufactured in our own country, and the duties now levied upon foreign goods and products are called protection to these home manufactures, because they render it possible for those of our people who are manufacturers to make these taxed articles and sell them for a price equal to that demanded for the imported goods that have paid customs duty. So it happens that, while comparatively few use the imported articles, millions of our people, who never used and never saw any of the foreign products, purchase and use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to the imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty charged thereon into the public treas ury, but the great majority of our citizens who buy domestic articles of the same class pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer. This reference