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mber, 1882, a project for a bill intended to reduce the tariff at least twenty per cent. The bill based on this was reported from the Committee on Ways and Means on January 16, 1883, and was debated until February 20, and then abandoned in the House for a bill which had passed the Senate. The Senate Bill was in the form of an amendment to an Internal Revenue Bill already before that house. It was passed on February 20 under the leadership of the young Senator from Rhode Island, Nelson W. Aldrich, and was sent to conference by the House a week later. In conference a new bill was substituted for the Senate Bill. This was hurried through both houses in time to receive the signature of Arthur on March 3, 1883. The tariff of 1883 failed to meet the demand for a revision. Its debates show the difficulties attendant upon the construction of any tariff. Congress was divided upon the theory of protection, both parties including high protectionists as well as tariff-for-revenue men. The revenue-producing side of the tariff increased the complexities, since every change in a rate might affect the standing of the Treasury. In addition to the economic and the fiscal needs, quite serious enough, there was the tireless influence of the lobby of manufacturers, pressing for single rates which should aid this business or that. Few Congressmen were sufficiently detached in interests to be entirely dispassionate as they framed the schedules. Many did not even try to disguise their desire to promote local interests. Neither party had a mandate on the tariff in 1882, but when the act had become a law it was clear that most of the Republican leaders voted cheerfully for all the protection they could get, that the intent to reduce the revenue had failed, and that what little hope of revision remained was in the opposition party. "The kaleidoscope has been turned a hair's breadth," said the _Nation_, "and the colors transposed a little, but the component parts are the same." It was deliberate bad faith throughout, urged a Democratic leader, and "finished this magnificent shaft [of the tariff policy] which they had been for years erecting, and crowned it with the last stone by repealing the internal tax on playing cards and putting a twenty per cent tax upon the Bible." Throughout the tariff debate no argument had been used more steadily than that of the protectionists that protection to labor was their aim. The degradation of "pauper labor
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