New-York daily tribune., 1842-08-07
Tea. Coffee and Salt.

Tea. Coffee and Snit
Was there ever so unreasonable party as that
which now seeks to paiate to the Country It's nos
tlty 10 a just Tariff by picking flaws with the do
tails OF The bill? Here are the articles OF lea
and Coffee on which, by the pending Tariff, a duty
of precisely twenty per cent is levied No man
doubts that this is purely Revenue duty II
protects no Home interest, affects the price of no.
thing but Tea and Coffee themselves. The rate
of duty proposed is precisely that named ia the
Compromise Act, which Act is held up by Loco
Focoisn as the inexorable law Of all future egiSa.
tion on the subject Tea and Coffee are articles
of universal consumption and therefore proper
subjects of taxation, though not as Is SO often un-
truly asserted consumed by the Poor as largely
as by the Rich. Where a peor mans household
consumes five pounds Of Tea at fifty cents-duty
one dollar-a rich mans will consume twenty-five
pounds at one doar-duty FIVE dollars. Not that
we believe the cost of the article will be increased
by the amount of the duty. In some instances it
forms US that he was at Bahia last year when
news came that Congress had imposed, was
about to impose, duty Of twenty per cent. on
Coffee. Immediately the market price Of the ar
tcle fell nearly twenty per cent. week after
came tdngs that the duty had been Strack out of
the pending Tariff bill. Immediately Coffee rose
to its former standard Now we do not undertake
to prove that on article produced nor rivaed
in this country twenty per cent. duty would make
no difference to our consumers. We presume it
would somewhat increase the price, though notify
twenty per cent. But if the article acre extern
sivey produced or rivaed here, we have no doubt
that it would be rendered cheaper on the average
by duty of twenty per cent.
But Dince this duty is in no possible sense Pro-
tective-since it is within the Compromise limit
since it effects articles by means sectional in
their consumption AID which cannot be smuggled
what is the pretexl for Loeo-Foco hostility 10
them! We would be very willing 10 leave all
such articles untnxed and levy duties exclusively
and sufficiently on those which come in competi-
tion with our own products; but OH what grounds
do those who oppose this course and clamor for
Rerenue duties only oppose one which is purely
of that character And yet we sec the enemies
of Protection voting in solid phalanx against this
purely Revenue daty, both at the Extra and the
present Session Assuming that they are governed
by any settled principles, their course is to us un
accountable.
With Salt the case is,enlrely different. This
article is largely manufactured in own Coun-
try. To abolish the duty upon it would help tne
Poor ct our Country as follows L. by throwing
out nf employment some thousands of them who
now make comfortable subsistence as manufac-
turers, wood-choppers, sc. &c. 2. by running or
greatly Gripping our Salt Works. it would deprive
of market the products of Agricultural labor
now consumed about our Salt Works g. by in
creasing largely the demand for salt at Liverpool,
Turks Island, &c. and diminishing the competi-
tition, it would increase the foreign price so that
Salt would cost our people more than it now does.
WE'LL says u Free Trader then our Works
| would start again No, they would not. Men
will not throw $l060 600 capital into business when
it can be demolished al breath by foreign neces-
| sity or pohcy-at least, they will not keep doing
| it after they have lost three or four times The
abolition of all duties on Sal: would have been
| generally mischievous but especially blighting tc
| New Y York, which derives from her Salt Works
direct revenue of 100000 per aunum beside a
vast increase of her Canal Tolls. Yet Messrs
| Benton, Calhoun & Co. have done their utmost to
demolish this great Home Interest without; a word
| of remonstranee from their party.
(