[Footnote 7:  Other issues absorbed public attention in this period—­the Spanish war, colonial policy, “imperialism,” railway rate regulation, corporation control, etc.]

[Footnote 8:  See above, sec. 2.]

[Footnote 9:  Compare with ch. 13, sec. 5.]

[Footnote 10:  Probably resulting from the rising prices, as explained above, sec. 2.  For example, in one year, from 1899 to 1900, the average ad valorem rate collected on dutiable goods fell 3 per cent, and that on all goods fell 2 per cent; in the two years from 1904 to 1906 the average rates on dutiable fell 4 per cent, and on all goods fell 2 per cent.]

[Footnote 11:  This “competitive principle” is essentially the same as the so-called “true principle” of equalizing the cost of production (see above, sec. 11).  It is essentially a prohibitive, not a free trade, principle.  Strictly applied it would cause complete exclusion of imports.  But as applied to selected articles which it is desired to exclude in order to “protect” the domestic producer, this principle would simply prevent the rate being placed appreciably higher than was needed to exclude them.  Anything beyond that point but offers temptation and opportunity for the formation of a monopoly by domestic producers.  Then, too, the rate may intentionally be fixed so as to make just possible the survival of the most favorably located or most efficiently operated establishments, while compelling the abandonment of other establishments.  See ch. 14, sec. 3.]

[Footnote 12:  Such changes are logically related to the subject of financial crises rather than to that of the tariff.  See note at end of the next section.]

[Footnote 13:  See Vol.  I, e.g., pp. 228, 431, 445ff, 466, 490, 506ff.]

[Footnote 14:  #Tariff legislation and business depressions.# The relation between new tariff legislation and the business conditions following it has been the subject of much debate in political campaigns.  In the few cases where a relationship has been most often asserted to exist, it is more probable that the tariff change was the result of business conditions preceding it, than that it was the cause of the conditions following it.  For usually a tariff has been revised downward because a few years of prosperity with large imports had so increased customs duties that the government has had surplus revenues.  Just when the tariff was reduced, the conditions were ripe for a crisis.  This happened in 1857 (already in 1856 there had been a preliminary halt of business), again in 1872, and on a small scale in 1883.  But the main reduction resulting from the compromise act of 1833 did not occur until after the crisis of 1837-39; the Walker act of 1846 was passed just as business was starting upward on a long wave of prosperity; and the act of 1894 was passed a full year after the severe crisis of 1893, when business had already entered upon a period of depression.  In none of these cases does it seem reasonable to attribute business depression to the reduction of the tariff, as is commonly done in protectionist arguments even to the point of attributing the panic of 1893 to the reduction of the tariff a year later!