Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/624

606 were disappointed. The mass of the people, who are the great consumers both of domestic and of foreign products, would gain so much in their consuming power as to cause the revenue from dutiable imports to become greater than it had ever been before, even if we take off fifty million dollars of taxes now derived from such foreign imports as have been named above.

Again, while the ordinary expenditures of the Government may increase with the population, the burden of interest and of pensions will soon rapidly diminish; therefore I am justified in predicting that if this policy should be adopted and continue for fifteen years or during the life of existing machinery, in which interval all our processes of manufacturing would be readily adapted to the new conditions at a diminishing cost, we might then, if we chose, relieve every article of import from foreign countries from taxation, except spirits, beer, tobacco, and sugar, and perhaps relieve sugar by substituting some other less onerous tax, as the people of Great Britain have done within a very few years.

We might come to these conditions sooner if it were expedient, provided the mass of the people could be persuaded to put a moderate duty on tea and coffee as a substitute for duties on some other commodities. This, however, can hardly be expected; the great objection to the present removal of the duty on sugar is that, once off, it would be difficult to put it on again even if the public should become convinced that they had better put a tax on sugar than on wool, hides, lumber, leather, tin plates, salt fish, potatoes, and other articles of like kind.

Strange as it may seem, a small part of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives seem to believe that the dogma of "protection with incidental revenue" has some foundation in right and justice—notably the author of this catch-word or phrase, who has been pushed into temporary prominence as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means by the very sincerity of his convictions.

The greater part of the support of this measure is, however, given by the mis-representatives of their respective States, who can only be designated as political lacqueys or time-servers, many of whom are known to vote against their own convictions.

It happens that most of the representatives on the Democratic side who have not heretofore agreed with the majority of their own number upon this question, have either been removed by death or by failure to be re-elected. Hence comes the necessity for a choice of parties, if this question is to be the paramount one in politics. It is a pity, even a shame, that a plain, practical business question can not be taken out from party politics to be settled on its merits. What is there that we can do to bring this about? This is a meeting of representative business men who have