Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/369

 THE MCKINLEY TARIFF ACT 347 sumer, but entirely to that of the foreign producer; unless, indeed, the favoured country can easily supply the whole market, or other countries are quickly admitted into the favoured circle. But the reimposition of a duty on the imports from a particular country, if it leaves enough of other competing countries in the field, brings a pressure to bear on the enemy without hurting the consumer at home. The varied sources from which we import our sugar supply give a fair field for exercising this convenient form of pressure, and it is clear that the present Administration means to use the threat of reimposing sugar duties as effectively as it can. Moreover, the reciprocity move points to a develop- ment in a direction where even those opposed to the new tariff rgime must admit a promising field. If the United States reach the stage of exporting manufactures on a large scale,--and I have already indicated my belief that eventually they will,--the first steps will be by ventures in markets like those of the South American countries. Connected with the reciprocity scheme is one for subsidies to steamship lines to these regions, which secured this spring (1891) a qualified success in the last session of the Congress which passed the Tariff Act. It is not impossible (though for the present hardly probable) that stimuli of this sort, coming as they do to reinforce a movement to which other causes give a substantial basis, may leave their mark on the international trsle of the country. The attempt to conciliate the farming vote, which is at the bottom of the reciprocity scheme, is seen in other parts of the McKinley Act, especially in the increase in the duties upon certain agricultural articles. Some of these changes are amusing. Thus the duty upon wheat goes up, from 20 to 25 cents per' bushel, and that on Indian corn (maize) from 10 to 15 cents per bushel; as if a high duty upon these articles, of which we export, hundreds of millions of bushels yearly, could have any effect what-, ever. Such changes may fairly be said simply to try to throw. dust into the farmer's eyes. Equally insignificant in their general effect, although not so unimportant for every section of the country, are the higher duties upon potatoes and eggs, petty exactions in themselves, and effective only where there is a board of trade between Canada and the United Stas. The duty on barley is also raised, to check a considerable importation of barley from Canada for the use of the great beer-brewing establishments. Of permanent importance are the higher duties upon hemp and flax, raw materials of which the finer qualities are not grown