Iron County Register

NOT A REVENUE TARIFF.

The Dingley Bill Would Never Build Up the National Income.

When the Dingley bill was before the house the Free Press took occasion to remark that whatever else it might be it was not a revenue bill because it did not provide for any revenue. It looks very much now as if the same remark would apply with equal force to the senate bill. One by one the revenue features-or what were exploited as such in Senator Aldrich's programme-have disappeared. Senators have awakened to the knowledge that revenue taxes have to be paid by somebody: and they have begun to suspect that their own constituents may be among the number of those who will be called on. They may not all believe that the foreigner pays the duties on imports: but the most of them think they can make their constituents believe that fairy tale while they know by sad experience that no such shifting of the burden of revenue taxes is possible even in imagination.

It is a hard task the senate has set itself by its latest move, the task of satisfying the taxpayer, the consumer and the producer all with one and the same bill. We do not believe it will succeed. The chances are that it will meet with the fate of the father and son in the fable and in trying to please everybody will end by pleasing nobody. But if the senators will only adopt some kind of a bill, get the house to concur and then adjourn it will merit the warmest thanks of a suffering country. Sugar, thanks to its action, is going to be high, and there is likely to be a heavy deficiency in the revenue for the coming year. But these are minor evils compared with tariff tinkering. The country can adapt itself to almost anything in the way of a tariff after its experience with the McKinley act. But it cannot adapt itself to continued uncertainty. Detroit Free Press.