Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/365

THE MCKINLEY TARIFF ACT 34; fused mass of legislation passed in the Civil War, tin plates happened not to be subjected to a specially high rate of duty, and they have therefore continued to be obtained, as they were before the war, by importation from England. None have ever been manufactured in the United States, and the importations have been large, amounting in the last year to over $20,000,000 worth. The duty in the Act of 1883 was one cent per pound, equivalent to about 35 per cent. upon the value. The Protectionists have always complained that this article was unjustly singled out for an exceptionally low rate, and have urged that under the stimulus of a sufficient duty its production would be undertaken in the United States; and, following their usual line of reasoning, they predict that this domestic production must eventually bring about a fall in the p?5ce of the article. The McKinley Act finally .ac- ceded to their demands by raising the duty to 2 2-10 cents per pound. The new duty is to begin with the 1st of July, 1891. But its continuance is macle subject to a curious condition: that, after the year 1896, tin plate shall be admitted free of duty, unless the domestic production for some or?e year before this date shall have equalled one third of the importations during any one of the preceding years. In other words, the permanent maintenance of the duty is made cor?litional upon a substantial increase in domestic production. The increased duty so proposed caused an outcry. The canning industry of the United States, by which vegetables, fruits, and meats are put up in tin cans for preserva- tion, has reached an enormous development. Its products are exported in large amounts, and the increased duty upon tin plate, it was alleged, would not only tax the domestic consumer but tend to check exportation. In this case no vested interest could apply for the maintenance and increase of the duty, and the question was squarely presented whether a further and consider- able extension of the protective system should be made. There can be no doubt that the proposed extension was unpopular, and that the tin-plate proviso was another of the items that contri- bute? to the Republican defeat. We may now turn to another and quite different feature in the McKinley Act. This is the change in the duty upon sugar, which has important fiscal as well as economic bearings. As the readers of this Journal are aware, the United States for a number of years have been embarrassed by a difficulty which most Euro- pean countries would gladly welcome--the possession of a surplus revenue. That surplus revenue has been clue chiefly to the im- port duties which, high as they are, have yet been unable to