The Evansville journal., 1869-02-02

IN gold. or one hundred per cent. on
prime cost, which thus carries up the
cost to five -eights of a dollar in gold,
or to nearly seven-eights of dollar
In currency, and cent or two more
for wharfage carries the price to
c ghty five. the bushel. The re-
tliler, as he comes to the vessel, says
he can buy at this rate from the cars
coming from the West, and he must
have thirty per cent. TO cover cart
age, delivery, loss by frost and de-
cay and danger in the fall in price of
gold, before he sells at one dollar and
fifteen cents to one dollar and twenty
cent? to his customers. With such
results and the risk Of navigation be-
fore him, the Islander prefers to fat
ten his swine with the mealy potato
we should prefer to the Western
product. and we lose both ways.
First, a cheap and necessary article
of subsistence, and then our commits
sions on the sale of provisions, while
| the Western farmer who may send US
the potatoes, resigns most Of his ad-
| vance to the railway, and the railway
pays it over in the shape of taxes to
| the Government, or in wages en-
HANGED by a costly food and a depre-
| ciated currency.
The Acadian shores of Nova Scotia
| produce choice potatoes-the famous
blue noses in abundance-and the Is
| land of Prince Edward could easily
supply the whole Atlantic coast with
this edible at forty cents per bushel,
and would take its pay In our produc-
tions, and the grocers' profit of thirty
L 10
| to but fifty three cents In gold.
The only impediments in the
way are the duty and the curren-
cy. Tie Government can spare
the duty for two reasons: First, it
yields no revenue. Second, we have
surplus of revenue TO the extent, as
| Mr.. Wells says, of at least seventy
| five million dollars. The duty is
merely prohibitory. 1t merely raises
the freight Of the railway, and gives
no encouragement to our farmers, and
the railway tax should itself be re-
paaled.
The railway tax of five per cent. on
net receipts, and two and one half on
gross receipts, with the war duties on
iron and steel, have carried up the
cost Of railway transportation from
fifty per cent. on gross earnings be-
fore the war, to seventy per cent. on
these earnings-more than forty pei
cent. increase-and thus contributed
to the cost of the necessaries of life
How is it with fuel? The rivers aud
inlets of the Provinces are fripged
with wood, easily accessible, but our
tariff excludes most of it, by duty OF
twenty per cent, and our poor, who
suffer from the severity of climate, and
cannot afford to buy taxed potatoes
and herring, are obliged to resort to
the station house to warm their stOm
achs with bowl or dole of soup.
Around a great portion of Nova
Scotia the wooded bluffs are under
laid with coal in veins of twelve to
thirty-six feet diameter, which can be
| placed on ship board at cost with
out profit, of one dollar and a quarter
per ton, which can be sent to Boston
for two dollars and a half per tom
But here it is met by duty of one
| dollar and quarter, or an hund red
per cent, which, with the wharfage
| and percentage on cost and duty,
carry it up to five dollars and quar-
ter ton in gold or seven dollars a
ton in currency, and when to this we
add the carriage and retailers profits
at current rates, the price, before it
reaches the consumer, carried up from
one dollar and quarter to nine dol
lars ton.
Let US strike off the duty which is
destroying the trade and running the
mines owned chiefly by our people,
| who have furnished capital to open
them, and dispense with the costly
premium on gold. If we do this, and
bring down, as we may, and have done
in past times, the cost of coal at our
piers to the London price of four dol
lars and quarter per ton, we may
have gas at little more than London
prices, or less than one half of cur
rent rates. All we have to do is to
return to gold and repeal imposts en-
tirely unnecessary on gas and COAL
Boston Journal.