quent meeting, the Board adopted resolutions expressing the conviction that "the general interest of the whole people will be promoted by a thorough revision of our system of taxation, imposed under the tariff and internal revenue laws," and respectfully suggesting to Congress "to avoid all temporary and special legislation on this subject, and to appoint, at an early date, a competent commission to revise the tariff, which shall take the advice of experts, both in the manufacture and in the importation of all articles subject to duty, and which shall report, for the consideration of Congress, a tariff calculated to do justice to every class of our fellow-citizens, and containing, as far as may be, in all its provisions the element of stability." The Board also appointed a committee to inquire into the principles and qualifying conditions which should govern the tariff legislation of the country. The report of this committee, which appears elsewhere, need not be quoted here, further than to say that it recommends simplicity in details; specific, rather than ad valorem duties; a distribution of the duties so as to operate as equally as possible, and without discrimination for or against any class or section of the country; and such an imposition of them as will best promote home production. CONCLUSION. Other questions of a national character have been considered at the sessions of the Board, and at the annual meeting of the National Board of Trade, at Richmond, where this Board was represented by its full number of delegates. All this action is recorded in its appropriate place in the present volume. In reviewing the proceedings of the year, it is difficult to place before the members a full compendium of the work which has been attempted, and still more so to present positive results in a precise form; and from the nature of the case this must be so. Much of the duty devolved upon the Board is of a negative character; that is to say, it must often withhold its influence when requested to give it, and it must often give this influence against measures, the success of which would, in its judgment, be injurious. And even when it is otherwise, all that the Board can do in many instances is to assist in forming and maturing public sentiment, and thus to prepare the way for action on the part of other bodies. It has no treasury of its own, from which to make contributions to works of improvement. It has no voice in the election of government or corporation officials. It has no legislative authority to compel reform, where reform is needed. It can only express opinions. Yet these opinions, formed after careful investigation, and aiming in their utterance to represent seven hundred of the most active and intelligent business men of the city, can hardly fail to produce an adequate effect; and the past history of the Board clearly shows that whenever its members have been thoroughly united and in earnest in anything they have undertaken, they have almost uniformly been successful. While, therefore, no body of men could be more practical in its operations, it must not be thought strange if the results are not always as visible and substantial as those which manifest themselves in other and altogether different spheres of effort. Respectfully submitted, HAMILTON A. HILL, Secretary. BOSTON, January 12, 1870. |