There was in 1880 devoted to wheat culture over thirty-five million acres, or nearly double the acreage of 1875. In twenty-five years a hundred million people will more than overtake any present or prospective surplus, and we may yet need all of our present magnificent wheat fields to give bread to our own people. Certainly we need not be in haste to slaughter and utterly exhaust the native fertility of our fields on the cheap terms now presented.
England, with all her faults, is great, but unfortunately has not room to support her greatness, and must have cheap food and be able to offer better wages or part with great numbers of her people. I most sincerely hope her statesmen—and she is never without those of eminence—will prove equal to their great trust and to any crisis; but we cannot surrender the welfare of our Republic to any foreign empire. Free trade may or may not be England’s necessity. Certainly it is not our necessity; and it has not reached, and never will reach, the altitude of a science. An impost on corn there, it is clear, would now produce an exodus of her laboring population that would soon leave the banner of Victoria waving over a second-rate power.
Among the nations of the world the high position of the United States was never more universally and cordially admitted. Our rights are everywhere promptly conceded, and we ask nothing more. It is an age of industry, and we can only succeed by doing our best. Our citizens under a protective tariff are exceptionally prosperous and happy, and not strangers to noble deeds nor to private virtues. A popular government based on universal suffrage will be best and most certainly perpetuated by the elevation of laboring men through the more liberal rewards of diversified employments, which give scope to all grades of genius and intelligence and tend to secure to posterity the blessings of universal education and the better hope of personal independence.
Speech of Hon. J. D. Cameron, of Penna.
On the Reduction of Revenue as Affecting the Tariff. Delivered in the United States Senate January 16, 1882.
Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania. I move to take up the resolution submitted by me in relation to internal-revenue taxes.
The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to consider the following resolution submitted by Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania, December 6, 1881:
Resolved, That in the opinion of the Senate it is expedient to reduce the revenue of the Government by abolishing all existing internal revenue taxes except those imposed upon high wines and distilled spirits.
Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania. Mr. President, the surplus revenue of this Government applicable to the payment of the public debt for the year ending June 30, 1881, was $100,069,404.98.
The inference from these figures must be that if such surplus receipts are applied to the reduction of the debt it will be paid within ten or twelve years. The question then is: Should the people continue to be taxed as heavily as they now are to pay it off within so short a period? Is it wise or prudent?