Now, the President, under the solemn pressure of his sense of duty, has given utterance to his honest judgment and delivered a message, which has been taken out of the mere dull sequence of official documents and caused a discussion from one end of America to the other that neither the wit of the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Reed] nor the eloquence of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. McKinley] will cause to cease until the iniquitous protection of the present tariff has been reformed. And if the gentleman from Maine will just wait we shall have as much of a tariff bill as he is able to consider, and far more, I think, than he will be able to defeat [applause]; a tariff bill, I hope, that will gather to its support every Democrat on the floor of this House [renewed applause]; a tariff bill which will gather to its support all Republicans who are not given over to "strong delusion that they should believe a lie" [applause]; that will gather to its support all the fair-minded manufacturers who only want what is just; a bill, whether wise or unwise, which will be the product of great labor and a very strong desire on the part of the committee to do what is fair and just. It will relieve the President, whether it be Mr. Cleveland or somebody else, in the next four years from the dilemma of last fall; and instead of finding surplus revenue accumulating in the treasury we will find this surplus left in the pockets of the men who make it. [Applause.]

To-day we only ask of the Congress of the United States to take more explicitly, if it has once done it, to take now, if it has never done it, the responsibility of authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States to buy the bonds of the United States, even at the premium that they now bear, and in the name of a part of the Democratic party I avow that the fact that it has to buy these bonds at a premium does not rest upon our shoulders; that we did not tie the hands of the American people by putting these bonds out of their power to pay, nor did we perpetuate the taxation which caused this unnecessary accumulation of money in the treasury. [Applause.]

The bill was passed without division. It was amended and passed without division by the Senate on April 5. A conference committee was appointed, which did not report during the session.

The long-delayed tariff bill was reported in the House by Roger Q. Mills [Tex.] from the majority (Democrats) of the Committee on Ways and Means on April

2, 1888. April 17.

The bill came forward for discussion on

REDUCTION OF THE TARIFF

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 17, 1888

Mr. Mills supported his measure.

Mr. Chairman, during our late Civil War the expenditures required by an enormous military establishment made it necessary that the burdens of taxation should be laid heavily in all directions authorized by the Constitution. The internal-revenue and direct taxes were called into requisition to supplement the revenues arising from customs, to aid the Treasury to respond to the heavy demands which were being daily made upon it. It was stated by the distinguished gentleman [Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont] who then presented to the House the bill so largely increasing the duties, and which to-day bears his honored name, that it was demanded by the exigencies of war and must cease on the return of peace. In his own words he said: "This is intended as a war measure, a temporary measure, and we must as such give it our support.'

More than twenty years have elapsed since the war ended. A generation has passed away and a new generation has appeared on the stage since peace has returned to bless our common country; but these war taxes still remain; and they are heavier to-day than they were on an average during the five years of the existence of hostilities. Yet Congress lent a willing ear to the demands of wealthy corporations and individuals and took all the burden from them.

Here Mr. Mills spoke of the abolition, since the war, of various internal taxes, such as the income and corporation taxes, taxes on certain manufactures, etc.

Now, sir, what has been the result of this high-tariff policy? Enormous taxation upon the necessaries of life has been a constant drain upon the people-taxation not only to support all the expenditures of government, but taxation so contrived as to fill the pockets of a privileged class, and taking from the people $5 for private purposes for every dollar that it carries to the public treasury.

The benefits of the tariff all go one way. They go from the consumer to the manufacturer, but not from the manufac

turer to the consumer. Suppose that the tax on the 60,000,000 of consumers amounts to $10 per head, then it is a tax of six hundred millions; if it is only $5 per head, it is three hundred millions taken out of the pockets of the consumer and put into the pockets of the manufacturers. The tax on the four hundred millions of goods imported goes into the public treasury; the tax levied on domestic manufactures, by raising their price, goes into the pockets of the manufacturers.

But, Mr. Chairman, it is said that this bill will injure our labor. It is said that if we reduce the tariff wages must be reduced. I deny this. Why is it that our rate of wages is higher than anywhere else in the world, that England is higher than France, and that the rate of wages is higher in France. than in Germany? Germany and France both have a protective tariff to guard against the free-trade labor of England. What then is it that makes higher wages? It is coal and steam and machinery. It is these three powerful agents that multiply the product of labor and make it more valuable, and high rate of wages means low cost of product. A high rate of wages means that cheap labor has got to go; and the history of our country in the last fifty years demonstrates that as clearly and as conclusively as any mathematical problem can be demonstrated.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Edward Atkinson, one of the clearest thinkers and writers on political economy of the present day, in his little book on "The Distribution of Products," lays down. the principle that high rate of wages means low cost of product, and low rate of wages means high cost of product. He says that "the cheapest man is the one who works the greatest amount of machinery with the least stops.

Here the speaker quoted from Mr. Atkinson various statistics, showing the improvement in labor conditions in several New England manufacturing establishments since the introduction of machinery. He then spoke at length on the rate of wages paid to workers in various industries in England and the United States, and alleged that American laborers are not receiving, in proportion to the amount of work they accomplish, as much pay as the English laborers. He said in conclusion:

Now, gentlemen, the time has come, after the people of this country have been bearing for years these enormous bur

dens that have been levied on the necessaries of life; now, when "trusts," and "combinations," and "pools" are arising all around us to limit production, to increase prices, to make the laborer's lot harder and darker-now the time has come for us to do something, not for classes, but for the great masses of our people.

I hope and trust that the bill which we have presented to you and which has met with favor throughout the whole country will receive a majority of your votes, a majority of the votes of the Senate, and become a law. I earnestly hope when the treasury is full to overflowing of the people's hard earnings you will lighten their burden, and reduce the taxes on the necessaries of life.

Although the bill we propose is not all that we could have asked, although it is a very moderate bill, yet it will send comfort and happiness into the homes and bosoms of the poor laboring people of this country, and I ask you now in behalf of them to consider their claims and help to reduce the burdens that have so long been laid upon their shoulders.

[Enthusiastic applause on the Democratic side, and cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"]

William D. Kelley [Pa.], of the minority of the committee, replied to Mr. Mills.

The enactment of this bill would instantly paralyze the enterprise and energy of the people. Under the baleful influence of such a law the report of the census of 1890 will announce the overthrow of our manufacturing supremacy and the reduction of our commanding commercial position to that of colonial dependence. It is studiously designed to produce these dire results, and nicely adapted to its purpose. [Applause.]

None of the provisions of the bill are in harmony with the spirit of the age: for they antagonize the aspirations of the American people and are not adapted to facilitate their efforts to supply their wants, gratify their desires, and provide for the future of their families. Its first effect, should it be enacted into law, would be to arrest the magnificent development of mineral wealth, of manufacturing power, and of the diversification of agriculture now taking place throughout the South, and to paralyze the organized industries of the North.

By putting wool on the free list it would abolish sheep husbandry, destroy the immense capital embarked therein, and impoverish the more than a million men who own the flocks or

are employed in their care, and by working this ruin it would diminish the supply of cheap and healthful animal food now furnished by wool-growers to the mining and manufacturing laborers of the country. It would also render the production of American tin-plates and cotton-ties impossible by placing those articles on the free list with wool.

By the transfer of these and other products of coal and iron ore to the free list, and by reducing the duties on steel rails, structural iron, and many other forms of iron and steel sufficiently to withdraw protection from them and permit foreign producers to flood our markets, it would, though it maintained existing duties on coal and iron ore, close a majority of the bituminous coal fields and ore banks which are now giving profitable employment to hundreds of thousands of laborers.

Let me now turn to President Cleveland's free-trade message. His assumption that the duty is always added to the cost, not only of imported commodities, but to the price of like commodities produced in this country, shows how profoundly ignorant he is of economic science. To illustrate the puerile absurdity of this assumption I invite the President's attention to the fact that, though the duties imposed by our Government on sugar when reduced to ad valorem standards were never so high as they now are, the price of sugar was never so low in this country as it now is. This condition of things is not exceptional, but is consistent with the history of the production of saccharine plants and the conversion of their juices into marketable sugar.

Here Mr. Kelley spoke at length against the reduction of the duty on sugar. He then concluded by saying:

The purity of the Government, the safety of business, and the morals of the people demand the abatement of the surplus by the repeal of the special war taxes from which it flows. If we shall fail to abolish these taxes, and, in addition to the hoarding of millions of dollars in the treasury of the United States, we also maintain a system of securities by which from. seventy-five to one hundred million dollars more of our money shall be applied exclusively to the use of the whisky trust in its war upon our industries and national independence, history, when referring to the surplus and its demoralizing influence, will impute the crime that perpetuated it and the consequences with which it is fraught to the Fiftieth Congress. [Great applause.]