Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1869-09-15
r'sn OPERATION or THE TARIFF.

BEFORE any kind of imported goods
OF manufactures can be landed i'm this
country, they are required to pay at the
Custom House a duty III gold. This dU-
ty Is sometimes specific, as when 4 tax
of 50 much per pound, OF per ton, is laid
on certain articles, but is generally Il
percentage on the value of the imported
fabrics, or, same article. For instance,
imported screws, such as you buy at the
hardware stores are required tOpay duty
UfeleyCn CCntsp pCT pound; imported boots
and shoes pay a duty Of 40 per cent. on
their value. On every pound of tea inn
ported, a tax Of p cents is levied; on
every pound of sugar from 3 to ) cents a;
on every gallon of mOlasses s cents; on
every spool Of thread a tax of about 81
per cent Oh its value, and so on. I
mention these meTly as instances Of
the duties on some of the most common
articles of daley use. Now what IS the
partical operation of these duties? How
do they affect the people? Take for in
stance the very common article of tea.
The duty upon it is p cents pound,
payable in gold. Who pays this taxi
The importer, in the first place, before
be can remove the goods from the Gus
tom house. But does he pay this twen-
ty-fivc cents Il pound out Of his own
pocket and sell the pound Of tea for the
same as if he had not been required to
pay anything? OF course not. You
might as well expect him to pay the
freight across the water without getting
it back. 1t simply adds that much to
the price of the tea. Now when your
wholesale grocer goes to New York to
buy groceries, what will the importer
charge him for tea First, the cost of
the article abroad next, the freight and
other expenses Of importation, inclUd-
ing his profits, and third, the twenty
five cents duty-in gold, equivalent to at
least thirty-fiyC cents in paper. The re-
tail dealer pays the same price to the
wholesale dealer, with the addition Of
another profit, and when you 90 to the
store to buy pound of tea you pay it
all together. Now, what do you pay
for tea? From 81 ,25 TO IS, 90 per pound.
Then about one-fOUTth or One-lifth Of
the price you pay for every pound Of
tea IS tax to the Government. SO with
sugar What do you pay forsugar? The
cheapest you can buy Is l25 cents Il
pound: the best about 20 Ocents.
Well, if YOU turn. to the [. :. Statutes
at large, vol. Is, page POP, you will find
that the duty Oh sugar ranges from to
cents per pound in gold, according to
its quality, or from / to ~ cents per
pound in paper currency. Well, Il
cents, the lowest duty, is more than one
third of the price of the lowest priced
article you can buy, and Z cents, the
highest duty, considerably more than Il
third Of what you pay for the highest
priced article. so on every pound of
sugar you buy, whether cheap or dear,
you pay more than OnC-thiTd of its price
TO the Government for tax.
And it is one of the peculiar beauties
of this system cf taxation devised by the
Radical partyin Congress, that on many
articles the poorer man Is, the more he
seeks to ecOuOmisg and the cheaper the
article he buys, the more tax nc has 10
pay in proportion. Take the article of
tea, of which | just spoke. The re-
tail price varies from 81 p to $500 per
pound. The tax on all kinds Of tea is p
cents in gold. OF about 56 cents i'll paper.
| you buy tea at 90 the tax IS about
Is per cent. of its value, or nearly one
fifth; but if you buy cheaper tea at
,25 the tax is about 20 per cent, or
nearly One-third.
Coffee, tea and mOlasscs, and pepper
and other articles of every day us in
every household, which i'm our state of
society have come to be regarded rs
among the ordinary nCcossaTiCs Of life,
are taxed through these import duties in
the same way. And these, you will
observe, are all articles of foreign growth
or production exclusively, for the only
ones Of those | have mentioned we ever
produced, were sugar and molasses, and
that production has been virtually de-
strOycd by the war. We have no choice
but to import them and pay these Gnor-
nous duties, or TO go without; We cam