The Alexandria Herald

The bill for a revision of the tariff of duties on imports has, at length passed both houses of congress, and wants only the signature of the president to become a law. That signature, there is no reason to doubt, it will receive, and it may be spoken of, by anticipation, as the law of the land.

Upon the passage of this act we have little room for comment. It is not the bill originally reported, its very nature being essentially changed by the amendments which, in its progress to maturity, it has undergone in both houses, and particularly in the senate. As it now stands it has some good features, and few objectionable ones. It augments the duties on many articles, but not to such an amount as to make them prohibitory, or oppressive in their operation. The objection to the principle of the bill in the southern country and in some of the commercial districts, will still have their original force: but those which are founded on apprehensions of its practical operation will not, we think, be realized.

As the duties are not so far increased as to amount to a prohibition, the effect of the bill will be, after this year, to add to the revenue an amount, variously stated, of from one to four millions of dollars. We do not much want the revenue, but, by this addition, the government will be able so much more rapidly to reduce the national debt, and thus to prepare the nation more firmly to bear up against adverse circumstances, should it have again to encounter them, as it has done heretofore.

By the passage of this act, we shall be greatly disappointed if one important good has not been accomplished, viz. the satisfying the petitions and wishes of a large portion of our fellow citizens, who have been induced, by a reasoning which we never could follow, to believe that such a measure as the adoption of a new tariff was inseparably connected with our national independence. It may be fairly presumed, now, that the tariff is settled for many years, and it is a subject of congratulation, that, being settled, the revision has approached so nearly to the beau ideal of a judicious one.

[ Nat. Int. of yesterday.