The Middlebury people's press. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1841-1843, 1842-03-29
Rate OF duty.

Ii is unnecessary to ask attention to the i'm
mense difference between the duty OH cotton
and the duties on the other productions of our
agriculture to which have called the attention
of the House. The discrimination, however,
between the duty on our cotton, low as 1t is,
and that which is the produce of, and import
ed from British possessions, ought to attract
the attention of our cotton growers, as a PEE
monitory symptom of what they may expect
from the indicated policy of Great Britain to
supply herself with cotton from her East India
possessions. As an indication of the success of
this policy, will refer to a statement ofimpor-
tations of cotton from British India, made in an
article which / find in Hunts Merchants
Magazine, for September, 1871, on the subject
of the commerce of British India which is
stated in the table of contents to have been writ
ten by South Carolinian.
'In 1881 (says the writer) the imports Of In
dia cotton into England were 1927 bales; in
1885, 116,l5S bales; and in 1910 we have 216,-
1874 bales-nearly trebled in nine years. The
importation in 1899 was 47,239,959 pounds;
and in 1910, rs, 709, 2s5 pounds-an increase
without parallel in the history of this valua-
bic commodity. In the first quarter in 1910,
the imports were %, GIL bales; ard in the same
term of 1s41, we find IS, 433-an increase of
1922 bales
Mr.. Speaker, the people who draw from the
soil of this great country the means of human
subsistence-especiallyt the grain growing por-
ton of them, are beginning to inquire tchaf pro-
portion of the people ofthese United States are
engaged in the production of the privileged ex
port. Why. they ask, should the boundless
capacities of the soil and the industry of the
North, the Middle, and the West be thus re-
strained-ihus made to submit to the cotton
growing power' They demand to know why
they are compelled to consume foreign manu-
features, while payment for them cannot be
made in the productions of their own soil and
industry. They ask loudly, and will yet ask
more loudly, why this perpetually exeausting
process must go on for the joint benefit of Eu-
ropean capitalists and American cotton grow
ers? The people of whom | speak want
market, and steady market'for the fruits of
their labor. If they cannot have it abroad,
they ask from the Congress of the United States
such legislation as shall give it to them at home
Legislation which shall give uniform and
efficient protection to manufacturing industry,
and save it and them together from the effects
of a selfish, monopolizing, crushing fereign le-
gislaton.
sThis S963,7I4 of wheat and flour was the
average of five years. The amount during the
first of those years was but S2S2,233, while IN
the last it was S9,0Ss, 5ss. So the amount OF
wheat and -four exported direct to England,
Scotland, and ireland, during the first of the
averaged years, was but S1,1s4, while in the
last it was S4,072 ,652-showing the f1uctua-
tions produced by the operation OF the British
corn laws.
Wheat is admitted into the North American
colonies duty free, to be manufactured and
sbipped to foreign countries in British vessels;
and all our productions are admitted into GER
tain free swarehousing ports of those colonies
free of duty, to be re-exported as colonial pro-
duce, in British bottoms for the benefit of Brit
ish navigation.
The duties vary upon sliding scale, cor
with the price of grain-rising as
the price falls, and falling as the price rises.
Thus, when the price Of wheat per quarters
bushels) is at or over 70 shilings sterling, (e-
quail to S17 SO, reckoning so pence to the dol
lar) the duty is but one shilling sterling per
quarter As the price of wheat falls, the duty,
by nearly corresponding process rises, so that
it equals the price when that descends to 43
The duty on flour is regulated by the same
rule, the barrel of -four being, by law, deemed
equal to thirty eight and half gallons oil
wheat.
The same mode is adopted OF increasing o1
the duties upon inuian o9 1 al,u
other grains, though not precisey III 'ne sa.ne
ratio, and, Of course, not Win reiere"oe " Inv
III. result is, as intended, an almost total ex-
c,us;on of foreign grains, flour and meal, when
y, moderate prices, and their admission only IN
times of extreme scarcity.