The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1856-11-19
Protection of Home Products.

Protection of Home Products.
1t is surprising to witness what strange eff
fects the passions and prejud.ces of the hour
have upon the reasoning and judgments of the
soundest and most conservative men. A most
remarkable illustration Of it is seen in the
course of many of the Republicans papers who
have been for generation the sturdy, un-
yielding defenders of old Wing doctrines
the admirers and the devoted disciples of Hen
nv Clay, whose cardinal faith ever was
protection to home industry-now through
the preiudices and antpathies aroused by the
recent sectional contests, are urgently demand
ing repeal Of the duty on sugar, because it
is a slave interest. 1t is a sad proof Of the Ill
effects of party strife-particularly on this
important topic of siavery-in perverting the
judgment and mental integrity of the best
men. To refute their present positions and
arguments, it would only be necessary to quote
their own sound reasoning, used la few years ago.
But in discussion where passion guides and
truth is not the object, it is labor lost to go
far for facts and arguments. We will take
their own Statements they now present 1t, to
refute it, 1t is alleged that the culture of SUI
gar is confined to a very small region, scarce
equal to the area of a few counties in Ohio;that
the whole number OF owners Of sugar planta-
tons does exceed 2,516-that the duties paid
on foreign sugar is over five millions dollars,
which is direct tax on the country for the
support of the $500 sugar planters; an that
is monstrous outrage and injustice. This is
a fair statement of their present position.
The extent of the land or the number Of
persons employed in it has nothing to do, we
suppose, with the principle Of protection. The
doctrine always maintained by the Wing par
ty, and sustained all their lives by the men
who are now denying it in such broad terms,
was that duties for protection were not tax
on the consumer and their own figures now
adduced will sustain their old doctrines and
refute their new faith.
They state the value of the imported sugar
and molasses to be about S18,OO0,OOO, on
which the country pay SIS, 100000, duties,
which is tax on the people, taken from their
pockets to support $500 sugar planters. The
value of the home product Of sugar and mo-
lasSes is about $l5,OO0OOO The price of our
home product, in ordinary years, has been
from three to five cents. In the last two years,
from unfavorable seasons, our home crop has
been reduced from one-third to one-half in
quantity. The loss of this one-third of the
home supply has raised the price to eight and
ten cents, and more than doubled the cost to
the consumer; who gets the enhancedsprice
Is this increased price tax on the consumer
Is the payment of 80 per cent duty to our
own government more burthensome, than the
payment of one hundred per cent advance
price to the foreign producer Of sugar p
II the destruction of one third of our own
crop raises the costs of all his sugar 100 per
cent to the consumer, how much will the en-
tire humiliation of the culture in this coun-
try. compel him to pay; and how much would
the country pay to the foreign producer in
lieu of the $5,000,OO0 duties it pays into its
own Golfers and receives back again for it's la
Dor, as soon as paid? Whenever Congress
shall be so misguided by sophstry and pas
sion as to withdraw protection from the sugar
interest of the South, few who obtain this ar
ticle now by the labor of their pens, against
its protection will be able to procure a lump
of it for their tea except at Sunday repast.
There could be no greater madness and folly
committed by the country than to repeal the
protection to our own sugar culture, and an
initiate it, at time when the product of the
world is diminishing and the demand is rap
idly increasing; and by a suicd al act place
ourselves entirely at the mercyof the foreign
grower If the loss of one half of our crop has
doubled prices; the entire loss of it, according
to all laws of geometrical progression, by
which prices advance as supplies are diminish
ed would raise the cost of the article to a
point at which large body of consumers
would be cut off from their supply, and the
poor man would go without it. 1t is unneces-
sary to refute the old falacy that duty is a
tax to the consumer-and bounty to the
protected interest. The present condition o.
the sugar market reutes it. But even if il
were true, in giving the bounty to the sugar
grower to maintain the culture, the corn,
the meat, the hoop poles and machinery O.
the west, which goes into the cost Of raising
sugar, get their portion of the bounty. Ii
doth amaze US to see an old Wing Clay Paper
of the character of the Vincennes Gazette
repudiating its former sound principles, and
advocating policy as destructive to the in
terests Of the farmers on the Wabash, as to