New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-02-08

full influence OF foreign competition. such duties DO
imposed that the duty on dairy products be main
tanned, and that the Oleomargarine law be sup
ported and enforced, we'll for the protection OF
consumers for the defence Of producers
WHY RN OUR FLAX
l. More than 1000, 900 tons Of fax straw goes
to waste or is burned in Western States, worth,
if prepared s26,oOo,Ooo, while we ray s16'-
100000 TO foreign makers for linen goods, be-
sides duties amounting to s5,5oo,0o0 which the
Government does not want and which almost
wholly fail to encourage the linen manufacture.
The committee believes, many farmers ask. that
the duties on flax should be raised, with the
duties on linen goods manufactured from fax, to
such point as to afford efectual encouragement
both to the preparation of the fibre and to the
manufacture Of the goods. Home manufacture
has made cotton goods cheaper here than they are
abroad, and the woollen goods most largely worn
quite as cheap here rs in any other country, and
silk goods 30 per cent cheaper than they were in
1860, but the linen manufacture has never been
encouraged by similar duties The market has
been left to the foreign producers and linen goods
are therefore 35 per cent dearer here than abroad
The only way to secure permanent cheapness is to
develop at home the manufacture to use up the
fibre already produced at h0me but now wasted.
ABOUNTY TO sUGARGROwERs.
8. No less than 279 Of the 326 farmers who
refer at all the duties sugar ask the abolition
Of those duties They state with truth that these
duties take from the people s5S, 900, Of which
the farmers pay about half that the Government
does not need the revenue: and that though
millions have been paid each year to encourage
sugar-growing in Louisiana, the average yield for
ten years before the war was 300. 900 hOgsheads,
and it has never been large in any subse
han nor NJ he
from home plantations; now not one pound in ten
of the entire supply is produced in this country.
Last year out Of ffty-one pounds per capita
consumed, over forty-seven were Of foreign growth
German bounties to home producers have proved
far more effective; the increase in German pro-
ductiOn in only eight years would supply half
the entire consumption of this country. 1t IS
officially reported that the problem of economic
production of sugar from sorghum has at last
been solved. 1t is therefore recommended that the
duties sugar and molasses be abolished. but
that bounty be paid to sugar-producers of our
own country. If it develops a great industry as
the bounty has in Germany, the people Will be
richly repaid; If it does not the money will not DO
taken from the Treasury. and the consumers will
have saved more than $50 600. 900 each year.
TOBACCO FRAUDS MUST BE STOPPED.
6. The producers of tobacco do not ask any
increase of duties, but they earnestly desire that
the fraudulent importation of coolie-grown TO-
bacco. by which their industry has been rendered
Improbable, may be stopped by more precise
language in defining the classes to which existing
duties were meant to apply. Since 1888 the price
Of American leaf tobacco has been unjustly de-
pressed, and from % to 40 per cent of the pro-
duction in some States has been stopped, by the
large importation of the type commercially known
as wrappers" so prepared and packed as to evade
the present duty on wrappers and to be admitted |
as other manufactured lear tobacco. Prepared |
by coolie labor in Sumatra, at wages OF 7 to | 0
cents per day, this tobacco is carefully selected
and assorted after fermentation that 100000
pounds imported takes the place of $1,000, 900
pounds Of American Leaf about 40 per cent of the
entire product of wrappers, and though in fact
highly manufactured article it is fnudulenuy
imported material Inferior, because OF
its bitter flavor, TO the American leaf displaced it
is preferred only because Of It's cheapncss and II
this country excludes coolies by law, can it Justly
permit the product of their labor to drive Ameri-
can leaf growers out of the business, and with
them large part Of the highly skilled labor OF
the farms and the cigar manufactured The
growers therefore ask that the law be worded
that leaf tobacco, any part Of which is suitable
for and commercially known as wrappers, shall
pay, if not stcmmed, 20 cents per pound; If
stemmcd, 81 per pound. 1hey moreover urge
that the internal tax on tobacco, which is no
longer needed and which burdens consumers and
limits the consumption, be repealed.
APPEAL OF TIE wOOL-GR WERS
:. The wool growers have especial reasons at this
time to appeal to their brother farmers for sup
port AZ time when their industry is depressed,
as it hardly ever has been before by foreign COM
petition, permitted by a reduction of duties III
ss3, by Treasury rulings since, and by systematic
frauds in foreign ports. the President proposes In
his annual message the repeal OF all duties wool.
In the two years before the change of duty, and
in the past two years, the imports for consump-
ton were as follows:
Year Quantities. Duties Year. Qnantities Duties.
1881 674l6967 72O cts 1886 1921 Dj49 ~ It's
1882 49, 63 Ulo 769 o. IL cts 1881 lI44D4l74 BIG cts
Av.2yrs OPPOSES e65 Av2yrs1l l5736l 495 CTS.
Under efficient protection the production of wool
rose frnm GO 600 OOnth in ego to 3QS. 600 0OOlb