By his calculations the taxes and tariffs then in force ought to yield in the year ending June 30, 1867, $435,000,000. Now the Secretary of the Treasury had estimated that we could get along that year on $284,000,000. Let us say three hundred millions, proposed Mr. Wells, and then let us set aside fifty millions a year for reducing the debt—that still leaves $85,000,000 to be taken off the taxes. Where should it be applied? To the internal taxes or to the custom duties? Mr. Wells knew the feeling of the people. They hated direct taxation, they preferred duties on imports, and he worked out a plan for taking the $85,000,000 off the former, but at the same time he called attention to various inequalities in the tariff which should be corrected. They came mainly from the lack of equalization between the two systems of taxation. The duties on imports were supposed to be arranged so as to compensate for the internal taxation; not infrequently, however, the tariffs were placed without proper consideration, and grave inequalities had resulted. These were of two kinds: either the tariff was less than the taxes, so that the manufacturer could not compete with foreign goods imported, or it was considerably higher than the taxes, so that he could put up his prices until they practically prohibited importation, thus cutting off revenue and heavily burdening the consumer. Certain cases of the first kind became familiar at the time from the fact that they touched everybody, and were explained clearly and in detail in Mr. Wells’s report. There was the matter of book-making. Everything which went to make a book was _separately_ taxed,—paper, cloth, boards, glue, thread, gold-leaf, leather, and type,—and when the book was complete it was taxed 5 per cent on the selling price. It cost 59½ cents to make a book requiring a pound of paper. The same book could be made in England and delivered in New York, including duty (the duty on books was 25% on the value) for 26¼ cents. Little wonder that American book publishers sent their work abroad to be done or that the boys and girls of the time were using Webster’s Spelling Books made in England. The umbrella was another common article over which there was much trouble. Each item which went into the making of the umbrella—sticks, rods, handles, tips, bands, tassels, buttons, cover—was produced by a different establishment, and each paid its own tax. The cover usually was imported, and silk paid a duty of 60 per cent. The finished parasol paid a 6 per cent tax. Now the duty on an imported umbrella was 35 per cent on its value. Naturally umbrellas were imported in quantities and sold at a price lower than they could be made for at home.