RULING OUT ART.
In their dealings with Art, Congress and the Treasury Department have not been fortunate. The legislative and executive authorities at Washington seem to think that the great and glorious principle of protection to American industries demands the exclusion or heavy taxation of every product of foreign art. The Treasury recently distinguished itself by issuing an order that all engravings, etchings, and photographs found in the mails from abroad should be confiscated. Under this ruling an American traveling or residing in Europe cannot mail a photograph to his relatives at home. An immigrant from Ireland or Germany cannot receive the likeness of his mother or sister in the “old country” unless it is sent him by an express company and through the custom house, whose expenses and delays are almost prohibitory.
It may be gathered from the preceding article that we believe in the exercise of the government’s powers for the encouragement of American industries and the protection of American labor. We are also patriotic enough to think that America is a civilized country, and that a policy of hostility to foreign art is unworthy of her. Art knows no international boundaries and is not a mere matter of dollars and cents. Even if it were, the prohibition or restriction of importations would make us poorer and not richer. Inspection of representative work from abroad is in a hundred ways beneficial to our own educational, artistic, and mechanical advancement. All this has been so fully and frequently pointed out, that we may hope some day to see it recognized in our fiscal system. The McKinley bill did indeed take a step in the right direction by reducing the duty on paintings and statuary from thirty to fifteen per cent ad valorem, leaving the tariff upon photographs, etchings, and all kinds of prints at twenty five per cent. It is difficult to see why the arguments that led Congress to cut off one half the tax upon paintings should not apply with equal force to the abolition of the other half. The Treasury order excluding photographs from the mails is surely oppressive enough to excite forcible protests. It is true that the ruling is in strict accordance with the letter of the law, which had previously been in abeyance. The annoyances—individually trifling, perhaps, but collectively serious—that its enforcement will cause, may result in strengthening the demand for the liberation of art from the customs officials.