Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-01-30
Ajax ON KNOWLEDGE.


Hour Congress Imposes a Heavy Tribmt
Upon the Dissemination of Literature.
Chicago Tribune
There are several great industries in this
country which are directly and grievouslJ
afflicted by the tariff without any rationa
purpose or financial reason. These are the
manufactures of cotton, linen, glass, and
paper. In all these great industries the use
of soda-ash and of other bleaching agents
is an essential and serious item of cost. The
articles are indispensable, and the tariff tax
is oppressive and repressive, and most in
furious to all engaged in these large branches
of industry.
We wish to call the attention of the press
| and of Congress to the effect of the tax on
soda-ash aud other bleaching agents upon
the cost of making paper. In this country
| paper is made not only from rags, but large
| ly from straw and from wood. The process
| of bleaching in the manufacture of paper
from straw and wood is costly one because
of the great quantity of chemicals needed,
and because of the oppressive tax imposed
upon these necessary commodities. The
annual importation of soda-ash exceeds two
hundred millions of pounds; the duty on
this article is $5.65 per ton. The duty on
other chemicals used for the same purpose is
even higher. Paper is one of the great
manufactures of this country, and every tax
upon the materials needed in the business
becomes burden, without accomplishing
any corresponding benefit.
The great .'boom'' which has 80 crazed the
iron, steel and coal industries of the country
has extended alphabetically to other pro
auctions. 1t has reached that of paper
making. The prices of paper at the Inills
have been advanced between % and SO per
cent since June last And the trouble with
the newspaper consumers Of print" is, they
cannot increase their subscription prices to
correspond with the advance of white paper.
If they raise their price, they lose subscribers,
and SO they are thus far standing the loss as
a choice of evils. When they protest to the
paper makers against the advance, the latter
point them to the high cost of sofa and
other bleaching powders, and say that if
the duty were taken off they could materially
reduce the price of print paper. This is
advance in the prics.
manufacturers have combined to place the
price of print-paper at the exact point whici
will exclude importation. The duty on paper
used for books and newspapers, magazines,
and other similar publications, is 20 per
cent. on the foreign cost, and 20 per cent.
on the storage, handling, commissions, and
other foreign charges, to which IS to be
added the cost of ocean freights and inland
transp 1rtation to the place of consumption.
The advance is an arbitrary one; there has
been no such increase i'll the cost of rags,
straw or wood as to justify any such i'll
crease in the price of print-paper since last
summer. There may have been some in
crease in the cost of labor and of transporta-
ton, but nothing to warrant the increase of
one third made by the manufacturers.
The papermakers represent, as they have
always done, that they are heavily taxed up
on the chemicals and bleaching powders
used in their production. This complaint is
also, and as strongly, urged by the manu-
facturers of cotton and linen goods and
glassware. This complaint has been urged
on the ground that, if the manufacture of
paper was relieved of the heavy tax upon
bleachers the American papermakers could,
because of the better qualities and cheaper
cost of the straw and of the wood, make pa
per for export, and sell it abroad i'll success
full competitor with the paper Of European
mills. This, if true, shows that the present
tax on bleaching powders and other chemi-
cal agents is an oppressive and restraining
weight upon the unlimited expansion of
American paper manufacture.
Any tax on paper is a tax on public intelli-
gence. The book, the magazine, the pamph-
let, and the newspaper are essentials to the
American people. They are the disssmina-
tors of knowledge; they are the great Ameri-
can teachers: they enter every households;
they carry information where it could not
otherwise go, and they cultivate aud main
tain the public sentiment upon which public
ard private morality depend. The magni
tude of this tax on paper can be estimated
partially by considering the many millions
of publications issued daily and weekly, and
reaching every household, showing the
enormous consumption of paper in this
country.
Now the duty of Congress IN this matter
is plain one. American manufacturers of
paper, and of glass, cotton, and linen goods,
should be relieved of every tax on each and
every thing entering into their production.
All raw materials, all chemicals, all dyestuffs,
and all bleaching powders of every descrip-
tioE and quality should be admitted free of
duty, aud these manufacturers placed on the
same footing in this respect with their for
eign competitors. The manufacture of
paper in this country should be relieved of
this tax in an especial manner, because
tax upon paper is q repressive tax that
reaches every man, woman, and child in
the country that can read and write.
At the same time, the duty on
all paper, especially that used for books and
newspapers, should be reduced one-h half, that
is, to 10 per cent. If the statements of the
manufacturers as to the heavy addition made
10 the cost of producing printing paper be-
cause of the tax on chemicals be true, then
repeal of this oppressive tax will far more
than compensate them for the reduction of
the duty on imported printing-paper. There
has been no print-papar imported for years ::
no foreign paper can be imported that can
compete with domestic paper protect
ed by duty of 20 per cent, and other
charges, and the cost of ocean and internal
transportation.
Vho 4ovo, ~, fbo III 40 oJ;,r, nj otbar obav,,