The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-05-31
Export duties on rags in the parious countries {
No

Let me call the particular attention of
the committee to the important considera-
ton that in reducing the paper tariff we do
great injury to the South and West, who
are largely entering into this manufacture,
the South especially; ay, sir, the South,
my constituency, by my solemn oath, as
well as the district whose votes have sent
me here, now struggling to restore itself by
diversifying its labor, needs the same tariff
on paper which has given confidence to
capital at the North to invest in this manu-
facture. The South, if sustained in its
"struggle for life," is bound to be great
manufacturing people, not only in cotton
and woolens, but especially in paper. They
have the best of rags-that | know from
my own observation; cotton waste, Ken
lucky rope, and every kind of raw material
used in this manufacture. Contiguitv to
the paper factory raises the price of rags,
and this is a boon to the poor families which
produce them.
The great benefit to the South, however,
from the introduction of this manufacture,
is that the paper manufacture is q pioneer
industry, and where one manufacturing in
dustry has been introduced. others are sure
to follow in its train. Labor is thus
from agriculture, while the profits of agri-
Why, in view Of the present necessities of
disturb tariff which has done so much for
us, until it has done the same for them ?
/, for one, would rather buy as | am buy
ing, through my house in New York, paper
made in the mills of the Carolinas than the
,>,al,nt, nf E,o1anI IL
the cry from Virginia and the Carolinas is,
"We are exhausted by a terrible war help
US, oh help us, to capital" why, why,
say, cut them down now?
But, sir, it is said we must cut down
somewhere. Then | say abolish your in
ternal taxes. What right have you to tax
by your oppressive internal imposts the
great products of Virginia and Kentucky,
tobacco and whskey? know, Mr.. Chair
man, that this is bold talk. Still, repeat,
what right have you to single out these
articles, the chief products of these great
States 4? You reply that they are injuri-
GUS luxuries. | protest against the hy-
pocrisy which makes morality pretext
for oppressive and unequal taxation. | |
have never used tobacco, but | can well
conceive that to the soldier on the damp
camping-ground, and the sailor in the wet
forecastle, the so-called luxury may be
necessity, as it is the chief solace of his
hard life. Is not whiskey something be-
side an injurious luxury? Who does not
know that spirit is the basis of many of |
the mechanical arts, the solvent, for in
stance, of all the aniline dyes which orna-
ment printed fabrics, and the basis of |
nearly all the medicines used in the healing
art? You say that England derives her
chief revenue from tax on these two |
articles. Do you not know that she can
afford to do it, because tobacco is not
grown upon her soil, and she cannot raise |
the corn and rye for spirit distillation If
we had brains we would not, for the sake
of initiating England, repress by taxation
the increase of the two great products,
tobacco and corn, of which we have the |
natural monopoly as distinctly as we have
that of cotton.
Sir, abolish every internal tax; make
free every article which our people can never
produce preserve the system of revenue
which shall spread broadcast over the land |
and mechanical industries
give to the South and West the same chance |
which we of the East have had for ourselves.
When the countries on the other side of the
water shall have abolished entail and feud-
alism, and abandoned that system of politi-
cal economy which makes the welfare of |
the many subordinate to the wealth of the |
few, so that Gods children shall have a |
fair chance on Gods earth for tillage and |
then, sir, it will be time enough |
% talk about the vagaries and sophisms of |
free trade, and to take the countries of the |
Did world for our models