New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-08-27
THE COTTON TAX,

| The New York Tribune defends the tax of
three cents per pound on cotton thus: 'Cot-
ton is bringing far higher than ordinary
price computed in gold , and those who grow
and those who consume it must pay taxes like |
others We doubt that another tax will be |
less onerous than this. If experience prove
it injurious it can be repealed but we have
great debt and every one must expect to pay |
his share of it. Putting it into this |
shape or that will make little difference"
Exactly so but why not then tax wheat
ten cents a bushel, and Indian corn four
cents bushel, and butter three cents a
pound and eggs two cents dozen? Why
select cotton as the solitary agricultural pro-
duct to be made the object of taxation ? The |
fact is that no such oppressive and onerous
tax as this exists in the civilized world, and it
is made doubly unjust by the fact that all
other agricultural products are free oftaxation
The impost Of three cents pound on cotton
isabout equivalent to ten per cent on the gross |
market value of the crop. Ten per cent
which is at least double the average of profit
returned by capital invested in agricultural
pursuits. Now, suppose that this rate OF
taxation were carried out in all branches of
agriculture, and that one-tenth of the gross
value of all farm products throughout the
country were seized by the government what
would be the result The value Of the farm
| products OF the United States is about three
thousand million dollars ten per cent
on This sum is three hundred million
/ 1,JJ,
year would pay off the public debt
in ten years. But any one can see the
absurdity Of such proposition as that-can
see that to levy SO enormous an impost On
tile industry Of the country, would simply De
to destroy all industry. Yet aburthen which
the comparatively wealthy and prosperous
North could not endure is coolly imposed On
The Impoverished and exhausted South.
| Would it be strange if the effect should be tS
destroy the cotton culture entirely in
place Of producing the revenue which
is anticipated, or which it is supposed that
/ the authors of the tax anticipated? Such viola
ton of the law ofjustice and of equal freedom
inevitably defeat the very objects with
which they are committed. The Tribune
thinks that as the debt has to be paid, it
makes little difference who pays it, Very
well-admit the proposition. But after all
it seems very strange that so much pains was
taken to single out cotton for taxation whilst
all other agricultural products were suffered
to 60 scot free. If it makes SO little differ |
ence who pays, why were not the corn
growers of Illinois and the wheat
growers of Ohio and New York |
called on for trife in the way of contribu- |
ton to pay off that sacred public debt? Why
we're not the potato raisers of Maine, and the
hay farmers Of the middle States, requested to |
add a small sum to the annual revenue Of the |
country, just out of gratitude for the preser-
walton Of the Union and the triumph of the |
old flag? If it makes so little difference who
pays, why is drawback to the whole amount |
of the tax allowed to the manufacturers of
cotton goods-but only after the tax has been
paid by the planter? The fact is that the |
whole history of taxation in these modern |
times shows nothing so unjust so tyrannical, |
and at the same time SO ignorantly stupid as
this tax of three cents pound on cotton. 1t |
will be sure to work injury even to the govern
ment which expects to profit byit and especi-
ally to the class for whom the dominant party
profess so tender a regard. If cotton raising
is so profitable business as it is assumed to
be by the contrivers of this tax, so enormous
an impost as ten per cent. on the gross pro-
ceeds of the crop will reduce its profits to so
great an extent as to drive capital out of the
business. Thus the wealth Of the country
must be diminished to the extent that industry
fails to reap its natural reward. The cotton
manufacturers, who were the chief schemers in |
this affair, in order that they might obtain mo-
nopoly of the home grown cotton, will eventu-
ally find that their supply is cut short and their
profits proportionately lessened and the con-
sumers of cotton goods-that is to say, the |
whole people--will suffer in the enhanced
price Of clothing. And, in the meantime
while these processes are going on, the wages
of the negroes will inevitably be reduced, in |
the first place by the efforts of the employers
to accommodate themselves to the exigenoies
of this unparalleled burthen, and finally by
the reduction Of profits aecruing from the less
remuneratiye pursuits into which capital will
ultimately be driven, and, in the end, it is
pretty sure that the government itself will de-
rive no increase of revenue from this tax. The
machinery of collectors, assessors and weigh
ers, established for its collection, will absorb
portion of it; another portion will be off set
by the diminished ability of the cotton plant
ers to pay other taxes, and perhaps all the
rest wilfbe more than balanced by the ne
cessarily diminished consumption of those
articles of necessity and luxury in which
large part of the tax would have been expend-
ed, and which are all subject to internal re-
venue duties. SAB
---------<s- F.--------
Russell, the London Times correspondent,
was recently arrested at Olmutz as a P1ussian
s,,rr and ad tl,n nnInas11rn cf c,nnIir,cr oo,no