The San Francisco call., 1898-12-11
OUR GREEK TRADE.


 monds, honey. iron ore, leather marble metal mus cal instruments olive oil, paper cheese, seeds, manu factured clothing, laces soap brandy and spirits sponges manufactures of straw, confectionery, still wines bottled wines, manufactures ot wood, carpets and woolsall to the value of $o48I73 of which Zante entrants amounted to $5748o2, the importation being i 2S 6I1 pounds Of non-dutable goods Greece sent us art works antiquities, gums, licorce root mineral water, chemicals, fruits, household effects, ores manganese, manufactures of zinc, oils and cliff stone all to the value of $S4,52o, making total inn port trade from that country to this of $732,7o2
 During the same fiscal year exported to Greece books medicines, clocks and watches, manufactures of cotton fish, glucose, cartridges hides, firearms, locks and hinges machinery stoves manufactures of iron, ditto ofilead leather, Illuminating oi tallow, vegetables, and manufactures of wood, all amount ing to SIooo23 to which add re-export of foreign merchandise amounting to $84o or total export to Greece of $1Io763.
 Therefore we imported from Greece $62I ,o3o more than exported to her, leaving that balance against us in the trade
 As our principal import was Zante entrants so our principal export was petroleum, amounting to only I,25o,ooo gallons, valued at $o5oS5 | In Greece the petroleum importation is Govern ment monopoly. The tariff on it 50 drachnas on okes A drachma is 1922 cents, or 100 lepta, and an oke is 2.34 pints. note in the Greek tariff ot 1885 says that the petroleum tariff IS 50 lepta per oke; the duty, therefore, o6 cents per 24 plnts, or 32o cents per gallon On export of I,25oooo gallons the total duty collected by Greece was $4Ioooo The duty collected by the United States the 2S4656II pounds of entrants we imported amounted to $56o3I2, gain to us in duties of $I5o3I2.
 It is obvious from inspection of these statistics that whatever reciprocal arrangements are made with Greece they will be for the benefit of largest port petroleum and of her largest, the Zante cur rants.
 It further appears that if duty is taken off Zante entrants in such arrangement the interests of Caor nia rasn- growers will be sacrificed to promote those of the petroleum producers.
 Inasmuch as the petroleum industry is highly ganized and highly profitable, is not sube to the accidents which bese horticulture, to the varia- tions in the market which affect vineyard products, and article of necessity and therefore assured all ways of market to sacrifice the California raisn for its benefit is proposition that should meet with the most stubborn resistance.
 As we have shown, the Zante currant IS a rasin made from grape. Wherever it IS admitted to mar ket 1t competes with every other kind of raisin Its disastrous competition when 1t free of duty is sorrowully remembered in this State The record of those years IS written in mortgages forecosed, vine yards abandoned and every form of financial distress that can fall upon horticultural community.
 No such necessity, no such misfortune, has ever fallen to the lot of the petroleum monopoly It has known no competition, no failure of market, no abandonment Of its plants
 The raisin industry here has struggled from the be- ginning This year it has tasted degree of pros perity but nothing more than to sustain and hold it together until another crop is produced Ii that crop is to meet free Zantes the market it will pay the cost of production.
 In this emergency the authorities at Washington must weigh the interests of the Standard Oil Com pany against those of the raisin-growers of Califor- nia and ii the principles of commercial equity pre- vail there ought to be no doubt of the result.
 It is not exactly correct to represent that the Zane currant import is competitive with California cur rant industry Though there in Placer County paying vineyards of the Zante vine and the Thompson seedess grape Is similar fruit yet the Zante import competes with raisns of all kinds as kitchen or cooking fruit
 The problem that has been before raisin is the of their product i'll cookery. Formerly the inn ported Valencia and Malaga raisins table luxury, used dessert and their use quite re- strcted and uncommon. The task of the California rasin planters has been to put their product in the kitchen, for cooked as dried fruit that carries all the wholesome food quality of the grape In the kitchen 1t has been met by the dirty Zante currant The latter has been considered in our tariff legislation since I8I6 The tariff of that year put it duty of cents pound; the tariff of 1892 made it free of 1S42 cents pound; I846 40 per cent ad valorem; 1866, 3 cents pound; 1890, free; 1894, IH cents pound; 1897, 2 cents pound
 It was only between 1866 and 1890 that Zante cur rants became competing import and their competi- ton became disastrous after the tariff of I8oo It will be far disastrous if they again made free for, matter what the tariff may be on tue large rasins, the real rate of protection they enjoy is the duty on Zante currants their most formidable kitchen competitor.
 AN EXPERIMENT IN FORESTRY.