The Tariff History of the United States

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. THE TARIFF ACT OF 189O. AFTER the passage of the tariff act of 1883 few persons would have expected, for a long series of years, a further extension of the protective system. Nevertheless, a marked increase of duties was made, within a few years, in the act of 1890, familiarly known as the McKinley tariff act: a measure which marks a new phase in our tariff history and in the protective controversy. In the years immediately succeeding the passage of the act of 1883, several unsuccessful attempts were made to amend it.1 In 1884, Mr. Morrison, of Illinois, introduced a bill by which a general reduction of twenty per cent., and the entire remission of duties on iron ore, coal, lumber, and other articles, were proposed. Mr. Morrison may have been moved to advocate the plan of a " horizontal" reduction by the example which had been set in 1872; and doubtless he was also influenced by the circumstance that the protectionists themselves had arranged the details of the act of 1883, and could not complain of disproportionate reductions, or of a disturbance of relative rates, 1 An account of these attempts is given by Mr. O. H. Perry in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for October, 1887, vol. ii., pp. 69-79. under a plan which affected all ar...