Nevada County picayune., 1890-10-23
THE FREE SUGAR" TRICK.

Iuc IoiiOWiHS IS lakcI rom re cent speedh made by Congressman Springer, of Illinois:
 The Republicans are claiming great credit for what they are pleased to call the placing of sugar upon the free list. Heretofore in discussing the tariff question have endeavored to explain to the people that the tax Of cents a pound upon sugar was a direct tax upon the consumers of su- gar in this country, and that it large ly increased the expenses of every household. This view of the ques- tion was stoutly denied by the pro- tectionists, who assured the people that the tariff had brought down the price of sugar; that it was not borne by the consumers ot sugar, but was paid by the foreign importer for the privilege of selling his goods in this country. Happily now in this con- test we are not required to prove that the tax on sugar was burden upon the people. That is admitted. Mir. Mckinley, in his report from the Committee on Ways and Means, sub mitted to Congress on the l6th of April last, referring to the tax on sugar, made the following statement q read from the official report of the committee):
 ''So large proportion of our su- gar is imported that the home pro- duc,ion of sugar does not materially affect the price, and the duty is therefore tax which is added to the price not only of the imported but of the domestic product, which is not true of duties imposed on articles produced or made here substantially to the extent of our wants'
 in this statement MT. Mckinley asserts the doctrine long maintained by Democrats, namely, that in all cases where we do not produce in this country any particular product to the extent of our wants, and for eign products of like character come in to supply the deficiency, the price at which the foreign product would sell plus the tariff would fix the price of the domestic article. But this is not true, as we always con- tended, of articles produced or made in this country substantially to the extent of our wants. For instance {: We produce more wheat than we can consume in this country. Thirty bushels out of every one hundred of our product go abroad and seek buy CTS in the markets of the world. Therefore, a tariff of 20 cents a bushel on wheat furnishes no pro- tection whatever to the wheat-grow- CTS of this country. The price of wheat in this country is fixed by the Liverpool price, less the cost of car rying it to that place. Wheat is all ways dearer in Europe than in this country. How could anyone, there fore, afford 10 purchase wheat at say Sl 50 a bushel, pay the freight upon it to this country and 25 cents a bushel tariff, and then sell it in this country at sl.25 a bushel? So of all agricultural products. We make more than we can consume, and all these taxes in the Mckinley bill, or tariffs on agricultural products will not protect the farmer or increase the price one farthing on any article of that character. But as to sugar and all manufactured articles which are not produced in quantities sui ficient to supply our wants, the duty is a tax, and is added not only to the price of the imported article, but to that of the domestic as well.
 MT. Mckinley proceeds in his re- port to state as follows:
 "In 1889 the duties collected on imported sugar and molasses amount ed to s55, ,975, ,6l0. Add to this the increase of price of domestic sugar arising from the duty, and it is clear that the duty on sugar and molasses made the cost of the sugar and mo- lasses consumed by the people Of this country at least SG4, ,000, ,0O0, or about Si for each man, women and child Tn the United States, more than it would have been if no such duties had been levied and the domestic product had remained the same"
 Mir. Mckinley then proceeded tc argue that it would be more econom- ical to pay bounty of ? cents [ pound ou sugar to the sugar manu- facturer than to furnish protection tt him by means of a tariff on foreigr sugar. This bounty, he states would amount to s7,000, 900 for tn, first year on the production of last