The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-04
The Cotton Crop nnd Tax.

From The ". y. Tribune.
The returns published by the Bureau of Sta
tistics relative to the cotton crop show that
upon 8, ,O67, 025 acres sown, a crop of l, ,56S 357
bales Of 450 lbs. each has been produced. The
tax of l cents per pound on this crop would
amount to 1904, Ol6.25, which, deducted
from the total value of the crop, estimated at
q cents per pound ($14S, ,209, 746'50), would
leave to the producers a net receipt above the
tax Of $50, 565, 73O2S, or $25 per acre for each
acre planted. Estimating the crop of 1858
(3,1l3,9G2 bales) as worth an average of 49,
cents per pound, the crop of that year would
amount to $216, 20S, ,962'S0 in value. The
crop of the present year falls below this in
value by about SIC, 200, 900, or 80 per cent.
The cost of production is also somewhat
higher under free than slave labor. But in
view of the fact that a far less area of cotton,
and relatively far larger area of corn and
food crops, have been planted throughout the
South this year than during most of the years
prior to the war, the above results do not
show an unfavorable tendency in Southern in
dustry. The South will have less cotton to
sell, but it ought to have less corn, grain, and
provisions to buy for home support. If such
shall prove to be the case, the South will
grow richer annually, despite a considerable
falling off in the cotton crop as compared with
the crop before the war.
Petitions for the repeal of the cotton tax are
circulating all over the South, and confident
hopes seem to be INDUCED that Congress will
repeal it at the approaching session. Some
are even flattering themselves into the delu-
sion that the portion of tax already paid will
be refunded, as if there was something inhe-
rently outrageous or essentially wrong in the
tax itself Undoubtedly, one motive in pass
inc tba taX " tn mart Of the
penses of the war upon the section and class
deemed Immediately responsible for the Re-
belliOn. To this extent it may be conceded to
be levied for punishment as well as for reve-
nue.. If this were the only motive which en-
tered into its enactment, this very fact would
now be sufficient reason for its repeal, espe-
cially as the punishment falls upon the loyal
labOring blacks as well as on the wealthy
planters. But there are other reasons which
the close of the war does not remove.
Although the cotton tax is, we believe, the
only tax assessed on an agricultural product,
as such, yet it must be remembered that cot
ton is the only staple of which the United
States has anything like monopoly; and
when country has monopoly OF an agucul-
tuTal product which foreign nations must con-
sumo, statesmen and economists generally
have agreed in the proposition that tax on
its production does not diminish the produc-
tion in any injurious degree, but is paid by
the foreign consumer 1t was because Con-
gress believed the tax on cotton would really
be paid principally by the English, French,
and other foreign consumers, that they levied
the tax.
Nor is it fair to condemn it as a sectional
tax, because no Northern agricultural products
are taxed. 1t must be remembered that in the
present dearth of manufactures at the South,
nearly the whole body of our internal revenue
laws impose their burdens directly and almost
only on the North. The South pays very
little of them either as producer or consumer.
Whether Congress should repeal the cotton
tax as a matter Of national economy may be a
very proper question for the fullest agitation
and discussion. The notion that they are
called upon to pay back one cent of the tax
already paid, however, is the widest nonsense,
and those who run any risks on such a con-
tingenoy are certain to lose their money. 1t
does not seem, however, to be a very serious
grievance as yet that seventeen millions OF
cotton tax falls peculiarly on the South, when
several hundred millions of internal revenue
taxes and imports falls just as peculiarly on
the North.