If, as I have attempted to demonstrate, a tariff is but a tax under another name, ther it is a burden upon the labor of the country, and is subject to precisely the same law as an internal tax. I now come to another point to which I have adverted, viz, that in the collection of a given amount of revenue, more or less evil could be done, according to the wisdom or unwisdom of the law. Nations which are older than ourselves in the matter of taxes, select certain articles to bear the heavier portion of the burden, rather than lay an even portion on all. It is an axiom, that the consumers pay all taxes in the long run; but this should always be qualified by adding, that their consumption of taxed commodities is regulated by their production. The great body of consumers and the great body of producers are identical, and they procure the taxed articles which they consume in exchange for the articles they produce. The articles thus selected for taxation are tea, coffee, sugar, spices, spirits, tobacco and other commodities, the consumption of which is voluntary, and the deprivation of which does not impede production. None of the articles named are essential to production, in the sense that meat, bread, iron and clothing are essential; and therefore the consumer may use a little more or less, according to the price, and still cultivate as many acres or operate as much machinery. England keeps her customhouse because tea, coffee, sugar and spirits are natural subjects of taxation; but, if they were all produced in England, she would tax them by an excise duty at the same rate, and abolish her custom-house. But now let us see if we really limit the power of the consumer to purchase tea and coffee, by a high duty on them, and no duty on iron, rather than by a moderate duty on each. Let us return to the Pennsylvanian and the Englishman, and remember the relative condition of labor on iron and wheat. Let us suppose that each was employed the whole year, save thirty days, in feeding and clothing his family, and has just thirty days to give to accumulating a surplus of capital. The Englishman, for some reason, desires to have, as the representative of his surplus labor amounting to thirty days, a ton of wheat, which he can make in thirty days; but he can make a ton of iron in twenty. The Pennsylvanian must have a ton of iron, which he can make in thirty days; but he can make a ton of wheat in twenty. By free exchange, each can satisfy his desire with twenty days' labor, and each will thus have ten days to spare. to Wanting tea, each will work upon some commodity to exchange for tea. We will say that the Pennsylvanian wants five pounds of tea, and with five days' work can get it free of duty; the Government puts a duty on tea equal to five days more, but the Pennsylvanian still has five days spare and works it out. He has his ton of wheat, his five pounds of tea, and has paid five days work or five dollars to the Government. But, under a system of protection to iron, by which the Pennsylvanian has been cansed to give thirty days to iron, he has only the iron; he has no tea; the Government has no revenue, and must now take a part of his ton of iron. Free exchange of the results of labor, free trade, free commerce, gives to each nation the advantage of the different gifts of soil and climate which God has bestowed upon the several sections of the earth. It in creases the abundance of the things which give comfort or enjoyment to all people. It does not degrade the labor, or reduce the purchasing power of the wages in the most favored country, like our own; but, while it would yield to us more comfort and more luxury, it would elevate the oppressed of other nations and civilize the barbarian. The individual laborer, who is skilful in farming, or well placed on good land, and whose wages are high because his product is large, does not give up his occupation and go to making shoes because some poor shoemaker near him is starving and willing to work cheap; then why should Uncle Sam, with his rich farm, and his domain, scarce touched by the hand of man, refuse to employ the pauper labor of Europe, of which we hear so much, because the paupers work cheap? Much of this hue and cry about pauper labor is merely clap-trap, the pauper labor of England is mainly in the agricultural counties. Of the same nature is the common talk about the flood of foreign commodities with which we are overwhelmed. Let any one analyze the imports for the year 1866, and out of $368,000,000 on which duties were paid he will find less than $68,000,000 consisted of articles of luxury, and over $300,000,000 were articles of comfort or of necessity. It is alleged that the total value of all our products in the year 1866 was $6,000,000,000 ; and it is tolerably well ascertained that the value of all our products in 1860 was $4,000,000,000, on a gold basis. If the estimate for 1866 is correct, then our flood of foreign luxuries was about equal to one per cent on our production! Upon the third premise, which seems to me fundamental, viz, that gold and silver, either in the form of bullion or money, are only useful up to a certain amount, which will define itself, if let to natural laws, I shall spend but a moment. Gold and silver, or specie money, has been adopted by the world as the measure of value of all commodities, and, being an article of universal desire, it has value in relation to other commodities in the proportion which the labor required to mine, smelt and refine the specie bears to the Jabor required to produce the other commodities. Now if the exchange of all other products of labor be left free, except so far as the need of revenue causes a tax to be imposed upon the so-called natural subjects of taxation, then the exchange of specie as one of the products of labor must be left free also, and it will follow the natural law, remaining wherǝ it is wanted most. The country which continues to use it as a measure of value will want it more than the country which has substitued paper as measure, or wampum or cowrie shells, or any other substitute which ignorance or necessity may devise, and the country which wants it will get it because it will give more of other products of labor for it, unless those products are prevented from entering the country which has the gold. If importations are prohibited or retarded, then gold remains in the country unnaturally, and causes an advance in prices the same as an issue of paper money. If we could prohibit imports absolutely, and continue to mine $100,000,000 of specie a year, its value in this country, in relation to other commodities, would, of course, be far less. This was done in Japan. Japan produces gold. but, by non-intercourse, it had so accumulated it as to cause it to lose a part of its purchasing power, or relation to other products; and the first outside barbarians who opened trade with Japan, obtained much more gold for their commodities than they could have got elsewhere. We can take the same position in the world as Japan, if we inflate our currency and prohibit imports; but our gold will then have no value except in the arts, as paper can be made with less labor than gold can be mined. Taxation of any kind is surely a burden, but it has its compensation. The desire to live as comfortably, or, in other words, the desire to produce as much for one's own use, despite all taxes, stimulates invention; and every invention, by increasing the productive force of the laborer, increases the result. The invention of improved agricultural machinery kept our crops increasing all through the war, and I suppose we can now produce as much more than we formerly could as would suffice to pay all the taxes without using any more effort or expending any more hours of labor in the aggregate; but the trouble is, the increase is not equitably divided, and cannot be under our present system of currency: therefore the burden presses more and more upon the mass of the people, and will continue to do so until the proper correctives are applied. Now as to the correctives. The first essential thing to be observed is not to make any rapid change. Because it would have been better to have collected the revenue from what I have called the natural subjects of taxation at the beginning and up to the present time, it by no means follows that we should jump to that system at one bound. Our industry has been diverted from its natural channels by protection, and we must slowly and cautiously guide it back, else we may all be paralyzed. We need the immediate establishment of a permanent board of Commissioners of Revenue, consisting of at least five competent men, secure in their tenure of office, well paid, and selected because of their fitness and ability. Mr. Wells alone, with work piled upon him which five men could not have accomplished in the very best manner in the time given, has yet made a report of inestimable value, and such as was never presented to the country before. A permanent board, known to have the matter of revenue in charge, would take it mainly out of party politics. The people could not afford to have it trifled with. The Board of Commissioners would prepare changes and give fair warning, thus giving each branch of industry time to prepare, and preventing disaster. Slowly, but surely and safely, can this country be brought to a system by which it shall secure an ample revenue from almost as few articles or interests as are now taxed in Great Britain. If any one doubts this, let him consider. We have now, as I suppose, a larger population, and though not as much accumulated capital, yet, what is more valuable, a better educated people, and a country whose resources have hardly been touched, and whose productive capacity may be indefinitely increased. Can any one doubt that a given number of hours of American labor will yield a larger result than a given number of hours of English labor? Aggregate all the American laborers into one, and all the English laborers Put the Yankee education and the Yankee versatility, and the innumerable labor-saving devices of the Yankee, and also the varieties of our soil and climate, against the great works and mills, and greater accumulated capital of the Englishman, and which would get the greatest into one. result for his labor? I think every one here will honestly answer, The Yankee, Then he will consume more tea and coffee and sugar and spirits and spices, and have a greater income, and require more stamps to represent more transactions, than the Englishman; and, consequently, the same rates of tax upon these various items will pay our larger rate of interest, but our less cost of army and navy and civil service, and pay our debt besides as rapidly as it should be paid. We are paying debt too fast now. The faster we try to pay at the beginning, the longer we shall be in paying the whole. The Secretary of the Treasury estimates the expenses of the Government, for the fiscal year, ending June 30, 1868, as follows, in round num We may soon reduce the expenses of the War and Navy Departments to an aggregate of $50,000,000, and ought to increase the interest to $150,000,000 by funding the legal tenders. The estimate would then stand: Population increases by births and immigration more than three per cent per annum on the average, but production increases in a much greater ratio; and rates of taxation so adjusted as to yield $300,000,000 now would doubtless yield $400,000,000 within ten years. The expenses of the Government would doubtless increase, but, in the absence of war, not more than the saving of interest on the debt ennually paid would amount to.* * If consumption should only increase at the rate of three per cent per annum, the rate would, in ten years, cause the avails of taxes to be about thirty per cent more. The rates of taxation, which would now give $300,000,000 would then give $390,000,000. If consumption should increase five per cent per annum, that rate would yield in the tenth year about $450,000,000. If we allow an increase of consumption at the rate of five per cent per annum, the following sums would be available in each year for the payment of debt, and in this estimate I allow a present need of $300,000,000, and that our expenses shall increase Let us now see how near we have already come to securing the sum of $300,000,000, from the sources from which revenue can be derived with the least injury. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, the taxes imposed, either under the Tariff or Internal Revenue Laws upon the following articles of interests: Incomes, Stamps, Licenses, Banks and Insurance Companies, Legacies and Successions, Gross Receipts of Railroads, Canals, Lotteries, Telegraph Companies, etc., Tea Coffee, Sugar, Spices, Spirits and Wines, Fermented Liquors, Tobacco, and Manufactures of Silk, amounted to about $260,000,000, of which over $80,000,000 was in gold from the Customs. The Income tax will be reduced by being made uniform, but the tax or spirits will be increased by the enforcement of the law, it having been. over $37,000,000 in the calendar year ending Dec. 31, 1866, against $29,000,000 in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866. It may be alleged that this year yielded more than an average, and there is some force in the objection; but, if we remove the internal taxes on iron, steel and on manufacturing generally, that is if we remove the impediments to production, I believe the consumption of tea, coffee, etc., as fast as our interest decreases, or that we shall only decrease debt by the amount? we get over $300,000,000. Year per cent Year per cent 1st on 300,000,000, 5.... $15,000,000 12th on 300,000,000, 60.. $180,000,000 Or in less than twenty years the whole debt will be paid, and we should have $500,000,000 to spare to build two or three Pacific Railroads, a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, and a few more works of the like character. If we allow an increase of the results of taxation at the rate of the increase of population, say only at three per cent, and allow $300,000,000 as the constant amount required for expenses and interest, we have the following result: |