The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and GirlsVarious
History
The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
History, Modern -- 19th century -- Juvenile literature -- Periodicals
Enormous sums of money are necessary to meet these expenses, and they are
raised by taxes. A country has no right to spend more than it earns, any
more than a man has, but there may come times in the history of a country
when extra expenses are necessary, and then the Government taxes the
people to meet them.
This is what President McKinley proposes to do now.
The new tax proposed is to be a revenue tariff on all articles of foreign
manufacture that are brought into this country.
The extra session of Congress is to consider, and, if possible, pass the
Tariff Bill, which it is desired shall go into effect May 1st of this
year.
The bill is being introduced by Congressman Nelson Dingley of Maine, who
is Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of
Representatives. It is known as the Dingley Bill, and, it is said, will
increase the income of the Government over one hundred millions.
It is said by people who are against the bill, that, if it passes, the
cost of living will become much greater. People who are in favor of it say
that by preventing goods of foreign manufacture from being brought into
the country, our own industries will greatly increase and our trade be
much benefited.
There is one section of the bill which will make it very unpopular to many
of our citizens.
This paragraph states that tourists and people visiting foreign countries
shall only be allowed to bring one hundred dollars' worth of wearing
apparel into the country free of duty.
When you think that you can get little more than a whole change of
costume, hat, boots, and gloves complete, for a hundred dollars, and that
people who are rich enough to travel in foreign countries give three and
four times that sum for a single outfit, you can understand just how much
that paragraph is going to be liked.
It is true that the law says that people may bring back with them the
articles they take away, provided they can prove that they took them out
of the country. But think of the worry and annoyance of arguing with the
Custom House officers as to where and when each garment in your trunk was
bought.
If it goes into effect, this law will certainly prevent a great many
people from travelling, for the hours of heated argument with the
officials on the dock, on the traveller's return, would undo all the good
of their trip.
The present Custom House system is about as trying to a person's nerves as
anything can be, and not a little of the trouble comes from the fact that
you must not show the slightest annoyance when the officer dives into your
trunk, and punches at the corner which contains your best hat, or feels in
the folds of a delicate silk skirt, leaving marks of dusty fingers behind
him. The least show of temper from you will result in the officer's
claiming his right to have the whole contents of your various trunks
dumped out on the wharf and repacked under his eye.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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