Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/451

Rh to the appropriations, except when the appropriations become so extravagant as to hazard the success of the party in power.

Such have been the conditions under which revenue measures have been treated by the present Congress, finally resulting in an act the avowed purpose of which is to diminish the revenue by increasing taxation, and to divert the increase of taxation from the Treasury of the United States to the support of private enterprises, either by direct bounty, as is proposed in the case of sugar, or by indirect contribution, as in the case of tin plates and other matters.

What other description can be given to a revenue measure framed upon the new theory of protecting—that is to say, of providing by public taxation the ways and means by which a specific branch of private industry may be supported, with the incidental purpose of yielding a lessening revenue to the public treasury?

It has therefore seemed to me expedient that one who has been studying the financial questions of this country for more than twenty-five years might rightly assume the functions with which the permanent civil officers of the British Parliament are charged, viz., that of preparing a budget by sorting national expenditures according to their kind, and by placing specific sources of revenue against the different elements of the public appropriations.

The writer may not presume to rival the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of the Treasury. It is their function to deal as statesmen with the facts that are prepared for them by those who are conversant with all the existing financial conditions.

The time has come when it is the duty of every man who may be assumed to have some exact knowledge upon the subject of taxation, to present his views when called upon in a simple, plain way, without regard to his own private interests, whatever they may be.

Before coming to the main subject, I beg to say that I should myself find it somewhat difficult to characterize my essay by any distinctive title which would be theoretically correct. I observe that my work, my figures, and my views are quoted by one party as often as by the other; and I also find that exceptions are taken to my presentation of this subject in about even measure by the doctrinaires on the free trade and the intolerants on the protective side alike. I may perhaps characterize this essay as one "upon the protection of domestic industry, and the development of the home market by exemption from unnecessary taxation"; or, for short, I will call it "Common Sense applied to the Tariff Question."

The motive of this address may be given in the form of a simple account current, which might be entitled "Uncle Sam in Account Current with his People." We, his people, may rightly charge Uncle Sam with the contributions which we are called upon to make in order to meet the obligations of Government.