They must be changed to
meet the radical alteration in the conditions of our economic life which
the country has witnessed within the last generation. While the whole
face and method of our industrial and commercial life were being changed
beyond recognition the tariff schedules have remained what they were
before the change began, or have moved in the direction they were given
when no large circumstance of our industrial development was what it is
to-day. Our task is to square them with the actual facts. The sooner
that is done the sooner we shall escape from suffering from the facts
and the sooner our men of business will be free to thrive by the law of
nature (the nature of free business) instead of by the law of
legislation and artificial arrangement.
We have seen tariff legislation wander very far afield in our day--very
far indeed from the field in which our prosperity might have had a
normal growth and stimulation. No one who looks the facts squarely in
the face or knows anything that lies beneath the surface of action can
fail to perceive the principles upon which recent tariff legislation has
been based.
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