If I fail to guard as far as I can the industries of the country to the extent of giving them the benefit of a living measure of protection, and business disaster ensues, I shall not be discharging my duty.
Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval an Act Revising the Schedule of Duties on Wool and Wool...
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But there is another, and a very important, reason why the bill ought not to become a law, and that is that in many instances it adopts the principle, rarely permitted in any revenue system, on whatever theory constructed, by which the finished product is made free from duty, and the raw material and the machinery necessary for its production are kept on the dutiable list.
This language is so sweeping that it might be made to cover almost 150 articles used in agriculture, which would affect many sections of the present tariff, and lead to the most injurious uncertainty.
The issue is not now whether we ought originally to have begun this investigation, but it is whether, having expended a very large part of the necessary amount to do the full work, we ought to break it off for lack of a comparatively small additional appropriation.
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