New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-01
THE WAREBOUsE SYSTEM.

| THE WAREHOUSE SYSTEM.
| The value of foreign commodities remaining
| in the warehouses of the United States on the
3Oth of June last-the end of the fiscal year
was S62,427, 500. On the 31st of May it was
$50. 352,519; on the goth of April S51, 257, O22
on the 3lst of March. $4O,459,407; on the 2Sth
of February, S35, 646,678; and on the Both OF
June 1868, S47,725511. These figures, which
we take from the monthly reports of the Bureau
of Statistics, show an increase for the year of
S14,70 ,O79, and an increase during the four
mont from February % to June 80 of $780,
78O,9iS, while the average for the year was not
very far short of fifty millions. The total
value of goods warehoused during the month
of June alone was S77,250,74, or more than
one sixth the amount of our entire imports for
the fiscal year.
| The spectacle of such vast body of foreign
merchandise hanging over and ready to be pre-
cipitated upon our market whenever competition
with our domestic products can be most success
fully made, is not agreeable to contemplate. The
vastness of tho amount, coupled with the rapid
accumulation of the last few months of the
fiscal year, is well calculated to revive in the
minds of the friends of American industry the
question whether il is sound policy to main
tain system so manifestly in the interest of
| foreign producers. Indeed ii is somewhat dif-
| fcult to understand why its pr0prety should
| have been permitted to remain unqucstioned
so long after the definite committal OF the
nation to protective policy-a policy which
| the present system directly and Obyi-
ously contravenes. The very act and
circumstances of its origin were calcu-
lated to make it the subject of prompt at
tention at the hands of Congress opposed to
Free Trade both in theory and practice; for
it was VIGOROUSLY established as a supplement
to the low tariff of 1916. with which the Free
| Traders of that day signalized and improved
their ascendency in National politics. The
mode in which the system practically works ID
sufficiently obvious. Virtually, it puts q pre-
MUM upon the importation of foreign goods,
| for it is a loan TO the importers of the full
| amount of the duties chargeable upon the mer-
| chandise during the entire time that it remains
| in the warehouse. We have not at hand the
| figures showing precisely what this amount is,
but the duties upon the average amount re-
naming in the warehouse during the whole of
| the last fiscal year could scarcely be less than
$50 900 000 which is equivalent to so much CAPT.
| tai permanently loaned by our Government to the
importers of foreign merchandise The duties
are just as much part of the cost of the
| goods as the freight upon them across the
| Atlantic or the cost of their manufacture; but
under our warehousing system it is n part of
the cost for which the importer can get credit
| rs long as is convenient, while the American
manufacturer, and the merchant who buys
from him, must pay cash in full for our own
native productions. 1t is easy to see how an
importer may become borrower from our
Government to the extent of nearly fifty per
cent of the capital he would require to do his
business upon cash basis for he will always be
tempted to enter and leave in warehouse long
est those articles upon which duties are highest.
Indeed there can be no doubt that such goods
are usually left in the warehouse until sold.
On the other hand, if no sale is made, they
can be taken out and shipped abroad without
any expense save the tritiing cost of freight
and storage. Thus an English merchant whose
warehouses are burdened with an excessive
stock of any particular kind of goods can quietly
| pack them up and send them over on a little
saltwater trip, to see how the American market
| agrees with their constitution. The more I'M
salable they are in Europe, the more likely is
| tnclT OWUCT w sCiiu ticih o'Ci hCiO upon :"
tempting credit, our own Government coop
| Grating in furnishing the capital necessary for
sustaining the competition of foreign against
| native manufactures.
| Even if we should admit all that the Free
| Traders claim about the paramount advantages
of getting cheap goods we should still be unable
| to see any reason for conceding to the foreign
| article privileges not accorded to our own. Yet
we do this not only in the way already pointed
out, bat in the item of storage also, for the
charges of the Government upon that head
| are no equivalent to the expense of rent in a
city where rents are as high as they are here.
| And it is In this city that the greater part of
| the wareloused merchandise is always stored.
Thus, very nearly forty millions out Of
the sixty-two millions remaining in warehouses
| at the end of June, aud over forty mine and
| one-half millions out of the seventy seven and
one-feurth millions warehoused during that
month, were entered in New-York. 1t is about
time to put an end to this business Of furnish
| ing cheap storage for foreign merchandise
| and lending capital wherewith to import it,
| Our tariff was meant to afford protection to
American manufactures; its effects we should
| not permit to be neutralized by a bonded ware
house system established in the interest Of Free
| Trade.
|