should be carried to the free list. valorem duty from 34 per cent. to last year of $1,124,532.48. The spices now pay duties equivalent to an ad 780 per cent. Spices paid an aggregate duty DIAMONDS. "When it is remembered how high the duties are on articles of common con sumption, and to which I have alluded, it will appear curious that diamonds 'not set' pay under this tariff only 10 per cent. "If reductions in taxes are to be made-and I contend that they may be and should be-and to the amount of $60,000,000, from what sources can one-fifth or one-fourth, or indeed one-third, of these come so well as from a reduction in the duties on this article of prime necessity? "In England there is no duty on sugar. Sugar costs there hardly half its present price here. The consumption of sugar in England is about 69 pounds per capita, and in this country about 38 pounds per capita. This article of prime necessity and healthfulness is kept away from the laboring people of this countryis kept away from the masses by this enormous tax upon the raw material.” DUTY UPON STEEL. On the subject of steel manufactures, he presented the following instructive statistics: "Under this heading I shall have time to do no more than refer to steel rails and indicate some of the ill effects of the present high rate of duty upon steel. The following extract is from the Bulletin of February 15, 1882: In the following table we give the statistics of the annual production of steel rails in the United States since the commencement of their manufacture, together with the average annual price at which they have been sold and the rates of duty imposed on foreign rails. The yearly price has been obtained by averaging the monthly price. The steel-rail mills of this country can this year produce fully 1,500.000 gross tons of steel rails if that quantity should be needed. We do not need to import a ton of steel rail today to meet the present demand, and as a matter of fact indications point to an early virtual termination of all importations of both steel and iron rails. "I shall allude further to this extract when I allude to some of the remarks made by the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. RUSSELL.] "The duty of $28 per ton on steel rails was fixed in 1870. It is not my purpose to discuss whether the duty was then too high or what effect the rate has had in reducing the cost of rails, but insist that a continuance of of this high duty is well nigh a crime. During the last year 372,375,307 tons of steel rails were imported into the United States, paying an aggregate revenue of $4,654,691.31. Steel rails are now made at about the same cost of iron rails. The above table shows the growth and capacity of the mills. The profits of these have been for the last few years simply enormous. The census returns show that they were in 1880 from 60 to 70 per cent. on the entire investment. Every person traveling upon a railroad or sending a pound of freight on it is compelled to contribute to these vast profits. This high rate can and should be reduced at once. Experts are not needed to decide so simple a question. A large manufacturer of Bessemer steel rails in Saint Louis, within the last sixty days, assured me that the duty could be reduced to $14 per ton and the manufacturers still realize large profits on their investment. Enhanced cost in the construction of the railroads of the country is a continuing burden upon the producer. All profits must be paid for by somebody. Reasonable profits are right and rightly fostered, but profits which create and sustain monopolies have no claim upon legislation for their continuance. It would be easy to show these profits, The production in 1881 was 1,200,000 tons. Permit me just here to say that when we look this steel question fairly in the face we can find no possible reason for the continuance of this large duty of $28 per ton. Nearly four hundred millions of tons of steel rails were imported into the United States during the last year. notwithstanding this high rate of duty. No interest which has been fostered by the Government till the annual profits on the investment ranges from 60 to 70 per cent. has any right to ask for any further time. Such profits are dangerous. They are unhealthy. The steel rail manufacturers are loudest in their demands for a commission. A commission pleases them. It gives them more time to continue the burden upon the movers of our vast internal commerce by rail. FORTUNES FOR THE FEW. The monopoly characteristics of the present tariff, and the individual fortunes made under it, were forcibly illustrated by the recent testimony before the Tariff Commission at Long Branch by John D. Dix, Esq., representing the drug and chemical trade. He said: "I do not come here with any personal axe to grind, but having had forced upon me in 1862 the preparation of a considerable share of the figures of the war tariff in reference to articles in my own trade, besides having had a long experience of 40 years in this business, I thought my views might possibly be of some value to the Commission. You have had here the chemical manufacturers day after day. The gentlemen who have appeared before you are of very high character, and I would take their word on any subject at any time, excepting where they are personally interested, and there, perhaps, their judgment might be warped. I want to say before I go any further, that I have merely taken up a few articles put down in 1862 in our list, to show you what has been done with them since. "The temporary tariff act of July 14, 1862, was enacted solely as a war measure, and not to remain in force longer than the necessities of the case demanded. Let me select a few articles to show what has been done. Take the article of acetate of lead. It is merely sugar of lead, which is very largely used in manufacturing We put a duty of 4 cents a pound on it. It has since been raised to 20 cents a pound. At present it stands 5 cents for brown sugar of lead, and 10 cents for white, which is 150 per cent. upon the price which I last received from Europe. I have not the latest fluctuations, for it has been utterly out of the question to import it for many years. No revenue, of course, is derived from that. Boracic acid and crude borax were put upon the temporary tariff at 5 cents per pound. No man in his senses would ever put a duty of that kind upon raw material, except upon an appeal to his patriotism. I find borax is placed at 10 cents a pound, giving a protection of 5 cents a pound to the manufacturer. Since that time-I do not know when, for I have not had time to look into it--the crude article has been made free; but the 10 cents a pound has been kept upon the refined article. The gentleman who has made the most money out of that will not appear before you. He came from Germany to New York in 1845, when a young man, to make his fortune. He is a very correct, upright, and honorable gentleman, and he has maintained his position in that respect all the way through. The great bulk of his fortune is made out of a few of these things, notably out of this very article. "There are some things in the drug line that will bear a great deal of duty and make very little difference in the price to the consumer. We put opium at $2 a pound, and morphine, which is its alkaloid, at $2 an ounce. There were only two firms in the country who manufactured morphine at that time, and we gave them a protection of from 55 to 90 per cent. In Europe to-day, and always, since the manufacture of fine chemicals has become a business largely pursued, the price of morphine is less than half the price of opium. I have here the list of Powers & Weightman of the first of this month, from which I see that the price of the pure morphine on the 1st of July was $5.50 per ounce, while it was $3.75 for the sulphate of morphia. Opium cannot come into this country unless it contains 9 per cent. of pure morphine. From that point it runs up to 14 or 15 per cent. I have seen it at 16 per cent, but that was exceptional. Now, if one hundred pounds of opium yields 9 pounds of morphine, supposing the opium to cost $4 a pound, duty paid, you can see there is considerable chance for sulphate of morphine at $3.75 an ounce making a very handsome profit. They put the pure alkaloid at $5.50, and sulphate of morphine at $3.75. The last price that I received from Edinburg, where there are large manufactories of morphine, was 68 6d.; that is about $1.60 in round numbers. I think the price here is very dear in proportion. Let me say to you that when I first became acquainted with Messrs. Powers & Weightman, and Mr. Rosengarten, in 1845, they were manufacturers, and I do not suppose both together manufactured 100 cases of opium into morphine in a year. I believe last year Powers & Weightman made made 1,500 cases into morphine. There was an immense fortune inthat business, and they made it. Mr. Powers died worth probably from $7,000,000 to $10,000,000. We "I now come to a more important article. Peruvian or cinchona bark. put 25 per cent. duty on that in 1862, and 45 per cent. duty on quinine and its other products Unfortunately, I have not kept that list; but I remember the fact that we went over the list immediately after the passage of the act, and found that about 85 per cent. of our figures had been engrafted into the bill. Cinchona bark, that time, paid 25 per cent.; the product of the bark (quinine), 45. Since that time (in 1864, I think) the bark has been made free, and 20 per cent. has been kept upon quinine, and 40 per cent. upon other products of the bark. In the year 1879, as you all know, a popular movement was started and quinine was made free. The members of Congress intended to make every product of Peruvian bark free; that was the intention of the promoters of the bill; but lawyers are not quite as apt to know of these chemicals as some other people. If they had known that there were other products beside quinine and its salts, they would not have put that particular phrase in which excluded the rest. Quinine is of more importance than all the other products; next in value is cinchonidia, and on which the duty remains at 40 per cent.; and of this salt Powers & Weightman have pretty much swept the European market; it has been nearly all absorbed by them." EXPENSE OF COLLECTION. Another colossal evil of the present tariff system-the cost of collecting its revnues-was forcibly srated by Mr. THOMPSON, (Dem.) of Kentucky. In a speech upon the floor of the House June 21, 1882, he said: I do not propose to go into any long-winded speech on the tariff question, but I cannot allow to pass without reply the statement that the tariff system is the most economical way in which money can be collected. I say that it costs more per dollar to collect money by our tariff duties than it doet by the internal-revenue system. It costs $6,000,000 a year, directly paid in fees, to put $198,000,000 collected from customs duties into the public Treasury, whereas to collect under your internal-revenue system $135,000,000, every dollar of which goes into the Treasury, costs only at the rate of 3.64 cents per dollar. can show "Your tariff system costs not only the $6,000,000 paid directly every year to defray the expenses of collecting the customs duties, but this amount, as you by statistics furnished by the Secretary of the Treasury, is increased by the amount paid in drawbacks, refunding, debentures, &c., besides the revenue-cutter service, which is maintained as a part of the system of collecting the customs duties, amounting in all to over $18,000,000, to which are to be added the enormous amounts expended in lawsuits and fees, and also the salaries of the men employed here in your Treasury Department, who are not calculated among the number engaged in the collection of customs duties, but whose duties are really performed in connection with that business. I say, then, It costs more than $18,000,000-more than 9 per cent. upon all the customs duties collected and put into the public Treasury. Further on he called attention to the fact that there is an army of 4,273 employees engaged in collecting this customs revenue. And, in conclusion, he stated some facts which had been overlooked by the friends of this system, viz. : "That to carry out the tariff system requires innumerable custom-houses, one almost at every point of entry in the United States; that there are many collection districts for customs duties in which the amount collected is far short of that which is expended in its collection; that in addition to all this expense in these pauper districts extravagant public buildings are likewise maintained; that there are no less than fifty-two in number in which less money is collected than is expended in its collection; that nine of these pauper districts are in the State of Maine, with six public buildings, in which comparatively no money is collected or goods are stored. I append to my remarks a list of these districts, showing the amount collected, the cost of collection, the number of officers employed, and their useless public buildings attached, and I invite the careful attention of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Committee on Ways and Means, and the country to this exhibit of the manifold duties and perfections of that cherished system of taxation which is to remain forever after all others are blotted out-which are to be retained in preference to specific taxes levied upon vice and corruption, and paid voluntarily by those who engage therein. As an appendix to his speech he presented the following valuable statistics upon this point: A list of customs districts which pay less than they cost. |