During this session of Congress the tariff was discussed to a great extent. Among the most notable speakers in the debate in the House were Job E. Stevenson [O.] and Samuel Shellabarger [O.]. Stevenson was, with the possible exception of Samuel S. Cox [N. Y.], the most powerful exponent of "tariff reform," which was clearly indicated as a leading issue in the presidential campaign that was just beginning, and Shellabarger, who, though recognized as the strongest and most thorough-going advocate of Republican principles, had heretofore kept out of the tariff discussion, was led to come forward in support of his party, and to demolish the arguments, not only of Stevenson, but of the great economist, David A. Wells, who had recently made an exhaustive report on the tariff.

It was understood that Mr. Wells had also inspired the plank in the platform of the new Liberal Republican party, which, inviting Democratic and Republican free trade adherents to the support of Horace Greeley, a protectionist, declared in favor of taking the tariff out of partisan politics.

PROTECTION AND POLITICS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 1-16, 1872

On May 1 Mr. Stevenson spoke on the inconsistency of protectionists.

The great obstacle to reform is the "hostility" of prohibitory protectionists to moderate measures. These propagandists appear to consider every effort at relief as an attack of an enemy which they are justified in repelling by all means in their power; hence they discard candor and fair dealing, and act upon the maxim that "all is fair in war." With such antagonists there is no possibility of agreement. weapon of logic and fallacy, fact and fiction. to assert whatever is denied, to deny whatever is asserted, and no proof satisfies them. They maintain contradictory statements and theories in the same speech, if not in a breath, as combatants fight before and behind, at the right hand and the left, caring only to defend themselves or offend their assailants.

They use every
They are ready

Inconsistent as are the arguments of those who advocate the exclusive policy, their practices are more contradictory.

Here the speaker dwelt at length on the contradictory policies of the States favoring the national exclusive theory. Pennsylvania, for instance, in her internal taxation system, laid special taxes on manufactures.

Mr. Stevenson continued:

If we accept the claim of "protection" as the giver of wealth, and begin to cast accounts with favored interests and States to see what they have gained by the policy, its advocates turn about and indignantly deny that it increases the price of protected articles, and denounce those who assert or assume the fact.

If the opposite theory be true, then how can the reduction or the repeal of duties on imports injure domestic manufactures? And why do manufacturers come to Congress on every rumor of a change of duties? What fills our committee rooms and lobbies and this hall with interested men? What prevents our proceeding at once to adjust the tariff to a revenue standard? If duties do not aid the American producer, surely we should consult the wishes of consumers and the interests of the treasury.

son.

On May 16 Mr. Shellabarger replied to Mr. Steven

I venture to copy the words of my most excellent colleague, Mr. Stevenson, who leads the "revenue reformers" of our party from Ohio in Congress, and say as he said in the great debate of March, 1870, to General Schenck:

"We are much nearer together than you think we are."

Now let us see if our differences go deeper than to the mere surface, the "incidentals," the matters of differences as to how best we shall get at what we all want-the things "tentative" -and as to which experiment, trial, experience, will, by their teachings, bring us quickly together.

First. Who in the Republican party does not revolt at the idea of making a law that shall confessedly tax out of one man's earnings parts of them and give it to another without giving to the taxed man a pecuniary equivalent of some sort? There is no such man.

Second. Neither is there an intelligent man in the country

who favors protecting interests here which are not "legitimate." That is, nobody is for fostering industries by legislation whose products, owing to the permanent conditions under which they must ever be produced here, cannot be produced without much greater expenditure of human labor than is required in other countries. For illustration, nobody is for what was rendered famous by the epigram of an English statesman, "Making protected wine out of grapes raised in hothouses in Scotland."

Third. So, on the other hand, no Republican fails to insist that any law which really does have the effect of here creating or augmenting a great and legitimate industry does by necessity bring to every member of the nation other benefits than the revenues it may yield to our treasury, benefits precisely as real and compensatory, as clearly within the cognizance of just legislation, and just as much to be counted in estimating the wisdom of a revenue law or tariff law as is the item of what revenue it gives the treasury.

Among these benefits claimed for a law which really has this effect of creating or augmenting in our country a great industry or industries may be named these: that by adding a home to a foreign competition you secure an ultimate reduction of prices; that the presence in our country of these industries creates a home market for some of the productions of the consuming class, which, owing to their weight, or perishable qualities, or the state or distance of transportation, or the state of foreign custom laws, or the like, he could get no market for abroad. Or the benefit the consumer gets may be in the fact that his lands are enhanced, or his business or profession or trade, by having this country built or filled up with these industries.

Every civilized government in the world, every practical and eminent ruler in our own history, every modern code of commercial law enforced by enlightened states, unite with our own entire and wondrous history in pronouncing it the first duty of government to "protect" as well the industries as the lives and properties of their people.

CHAPTER X

A TARIFF FOR REVENUE ONLY

[PROPOSED WOOD BILL OF 1878]

Fernando Wood [N. Y.] Introduces a Bill in the House for a Revision (Downward) of the Tariff-Debate: in Favor, Mr. Wood, John R. Tucker [Va.]; Opposed, William McKinley [O.], William D. Kelley [Pa.], Gen. James A. Garfield [O.]-Bill Fails to Come to a VoteGeneral Winfield S. Hancock on the Tariff.

N March 26, 1878, Fernando Wood [N. Y.] reported in the House, from the Committee on Ways and Means, a bill reducing customs duties and reforming the entire system of the tariff. It came up for discussion on April 9.

REFORM AND REDUCTION OF THE TARIFF

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 9-JUNE 4, 1878

MR. WOOD.-It will be remembered that taxation simply consists in imposing exactions for the support of the Government. It was not designed that any other considerations should enter into the discharge of this trust. The burden, whether great or small, was to be borne by the whole people upon principles of equity and equality.

The United States has never had a permanently established system by which to procure revenue and to regulate its commerce with other nations. Nor is this singular in view of the fact that we have been undergoing remarkable changes since our national birth. Within the century of our existence the policy that was desirable at one time would have been very unfortunate at another, and at no time have we been so circumstanced until now that we could adopt political economies purely American. That period has arrived. For the first fourth of our century of life we were emerging from a colonial chaotic.

condition, struggling to cement fraternity among ourselves and to furnish mutual protection against others. The next quarter of the century was devoted to the ascertainment of our resources, and an assertion of our independence upon the seas. The third quarter was distinguished by the expansion of our territory, the acquisition of mineral resources of incalculable value, and a gradual growth of the nation toward becoming a great maritime power. While the last fourth of the century has marked the most extraordinary epoch in our history-distinguished for its extinction of slavery-the greatest civil war of any time, and its consequent demoralizing and stimulating effects upon values, and the vicious legislation which of necessity followed. The nation, in consequence, lies weakened and prostrated, and sick almost unto death.

We are now brought face to face with the solemn consideration of the present, and the great duties of the future. Doubtless those who shall write the history of this century hereafter will not fail to discover that in this latter period to which I have referred, comprehending the present time, could be traced the germ of the subsequent national grandeur, wealth, and power, which I now see clearly are, with wisdom in our legislation, susceptible of accomplishment. There is now no pending question which is within itself of sufficient importance to the people to make it worthy of a moment's consideration as compared with that of establishing a policy of international commercial intercourse, connected with a policy of taxation, which shall be wise in its inception, permanent in its character, less onerous in its exactions, and have for its prime objects a fuller development of our material resources, and a more profitable disposition of the fruits of labor, the results of enterprise, and the security and profits of capital.

These objects are to be secured by the application of principles in legislation which shall take from labor and capital the minimum of taxation with a maximum of advantage in return, by economy in administration, and the fullest possible development of the resources of the country, from which both production and commerce shall derive an equal, honest, and legitimate advantage in the prosecution of their industries.

The fundamental basis upon which our legislation to promote these objects should rest is that production and commerce are twin sisters, and should go hand in hand-that one is indispensable to the other. There can be no antagonism between them. While it may be true that the present cost of internal transit in this country has imposed and does impose an undue