und markets abroad was
nearly $70,000,000 more than during the preceding year.

Those who insist that the cost to our people of articles coming to
them from abroad for their needful use should only be increased through
tariff charges to an extent necessary to meet the expenses of the
Government, as well as those who claim that tariff charges may be laid
upon such articles beyond the necessities of Government revenue and with
the additional purpose of so increasing their price in our markets as
to give American manufacturers and producers better and more profitable
opportunities, must agree that our tariff laws are only primarily
justified as sources of revenue to enable the Government to meet the
necessary expenses of its maintenance. Considered as to its efficiency
in this aspect, the present law can by no means fall under just
condemnation. During the only complete fiscal year of its operation it
has yielded nearly $8,000,000 more revenue than was received from tariff
duties in the preceding year. There was, nevertheless, a deficit between
our receipts and expenditures of a little more than $25,000,000. This,
however, was not unexpected.

The situation was such in December last, seven months before the close
of the fiscal year, that the Secretary of the Treasury foretold a
deficiency of $17,000,000. The great and increasing apprehension and
timidity in business circles and the depression in all activities
intervening since that time, resulting from causes perfectly well
understood and entirely disconnected with our tariff law or its
operation, seriously checked the imports we would have otherwise
received and readily account for the difference between this estimate
of the Secretary and the actual deficiency, as well as for a continued
deficit. Indeed, it must be confessed that we could hardly have had a
more unfavorable period than the last two years for the collection of
tariff revenue. We can not reasonably hope that our recuperation from
this business depression will be sudden, but it has already set in with
a promise of acceleration and continuance.

I believe our present tariff law, if allowed a fair opportunity, will
in the near future yield a revenue which, with reasonably economical
expenditures, will overcome all deficiencies. In the meantime no deficit
that has occurred or may occur need excite or disturb us. To meet any
such deficit we have in the Treasury in addition to a gold reserve of
one hundred mil