erate the recommendation contained in my last two annual messages
in favor of imposing specific instead of _ad valorem_ duties on all
imported articles to which these can be properly applied. From long
observation and experience I am convinced that specific duties
are necessary, both to protect the revenue and to secure to our
manufacturing interests that amount of incidental encouragement
which unavoidably results from a revenue tariff.

As an abstract proposition it may be admitted that _ad valorem_ duties
would in theory be the most just and equal. But if the experience of
this and of all other commercial nations has demonstrated that such
duties can not be assessed and collected without great frauds upon the
revenue, then it is the part of wisdom to resort to specific duties.
Indeed, from the very nature of an _ad valorem_ duty this must be the
result. Under it the inevitable consequence is that foreign goods will
be entered at less than their true value. The Treasury will therefore
lose the duty on the difference between their real and fictitious value,
and to this extent we are defrauded.

The temptations which _ad valorem_ duties present to a dishonest
importer are irresistible. His object is to pass his goods through the
custom-house at the very lowest valuation necessary to save them from
confiscation. In this he too often succeeds in spite of the vigilance,
of the revenue officers. Hence the resort to false invoices, one for the
purchaser and another for the custom-house, and to other expedients to
defraud the Government. The honest importer produces his invoice to the
collector, stating the actual price, at which he purchased the articles
abroad. Not so the dishonest importer and the agent of the foreign
manufacturer. And here it may be observed that a very large proportion
of the manufactures imported from abroad are consigned for sale to
commission merchants, who are mere agents employed by the manufacturers.
In such cases no actual sale has been made to fix their value. The
foreign manufacturer, if he be dishonest, prepares an invoice of the
goods, not at their actual value, but at the very lowest rate necessary
to escape detection. In this manner the dishonest importer and the
foreign manufacturer enjoy a decided advantage over the honest merchant.
They are thus enabled to undersell the fair trader and drive him from
the market. In fact the operation of this system has already driven from
the pursuits of