The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-04-03

ate rhetoric that IL was our plain duty
to return to the people who have palt
the duties under the Dingley tariff act
since our occupation the money which
had been collected. The whole policy
of the Republican party. from the
president to congress, has been to give
back to Puerto Rico ali the taxes
levied and collected upon her products
to give them back to her for the pur-
poses of her government and for the
purposes of her Improvement ana her
progress. These duties had been paid
by the sugar trust which controls the
tobacco product of the isIand-two or
the richest and great money-making
corporations in the world. They had
bought the sugar and tobacco at q
price which included the Dingley tarif
duties and sold them to the people oil
the United States at a large profit at
ter the duties were paid. In the bill
which we have just passed. instead or
paying these duties back to these cor
porations, which have been the subject
of so much abuse and with whom we
have been charged with being allied,
we have given them back to the people
of Puerto Rico for their schoolhouses,
for their roads, for the relief of their
starving. and for the employment
which will come in the proper admin
istration of the fund.
Some Figures.
The analysis of the productions of
the island which are exported shows
that above five-eights Is coffee. There
is no duty on coffee. and 50 there is no
outrage there. There is a duty at
present of s1.6O per hundred pounds
upon sugar and sl.S5 per pound upon
tobacco under the Dingley tariff act
There are millions Of dollars worth
of fnh nwnp1
the sugar and tobacco trusts, which is
held from the market and stored in
warehouses i'm Puerto Rico awaiting
the action upon this bill. This sugar
and tobacco was bought from the
planters of Puerto Rico at price
which included these Dingley tariff
duties and still left large profit for
the purchaser. Every concession made
from the DinEley tariff is that much
more clear profit, not to the producer,
or the laborer, or the citizens of Puerto
Rico, but to these purchasers OF thelr
products. So by this act we are, out
of the hundred per cent of additional
profit which the sugar trust and 90
| bacCo trust would receive under frc"
trade, taking fifteen per cent for the
people Of Puerto Rico and leaving the
purchasers eighty-five per cent Tor
their own income. The only difference
between the original recommendation
Of the president of the United states
and the action of the house of repre-
sentatives and of the senate committee
, Is i'm the method by which the people
of Puerto Rico can receive the whole
of the revenue from the tariff.
Presidents Intention.
! The presidents recommendation ot
! free trade was made in order that
| Puerto Ricans might have the use NJ
these duties in Puerto Rico by not
having to pay them-that is. by keep
ing the money for public purposes in
! the island. The proposition of the
house of representatives and of this
committee is that those duties shall be
! collected and returned to the people of
, Puerto Rico, because it is the only way
| by which the people of the island will
| get a dollar of benefit from them Now,
| from whom will they he collected? In
| the last twenty-five years sugar has
/ fluctuated as much as any other pro-
I duct in the market: coffee has been
subjected to the opening Of new
sources OF supply. TO failures OF crops
and to all those elements which add or
, take away from twenty-five to fifty
per cent of the market price. But while
coffee and sugar importers have grown
| rich and by their skill, their capital,
| and their far r-Sightedness been able al
ways to calculate future prospects and
to make money, no matter what tho
conditions. the laborer upon the plan
tations who produced these crops has
never known any difference in his
wage Unhappily for him, the labor
market was always overstocker; un-
| happily for him, there was no industry
| but the land to which he or his family
could apply for help. lie was "thn
man with the hoe" meeting all the
conditions of DR.. Markhdm's remark
! able poem. He was too ignorant tn
/ know when good times We're making
| fortunes for those who handle the pro-
| duct which he raised by his labor; he
was too poverty stricken to subsist in
| an organized effort to increase the re-
muneration for his toll II will be
| many a year before these conditions
| change for the masses of the Puerto
.Rican people. They can never change
| when an OvercrOwded population has
but one means of livelihood and there
are no varied industries for its relief.
Who Pays the TARIFF
Then who pays this tariff, and who
gets the benefit of it? For the first
! time in the history of Puerto Rico it
! is paid by those who make money out
! of her. by those who are enriched by
her toll: by those who are far removed
from the ignorance ana tne SuI1erlnR
and the squalor of her population. The
tariff money taken from them goes
really to the people of Puerto Rico who
never before received any benefit. It
will go for schoolhouses and school
| teachers, which will make the next
! generation worthier of citizenship and
government; it will go for roads
which will give employment and OPP
portunities for other industries than
merely agricultural; it will go for those
ordinary functions of government
which must be maintained or you have
anarchy, and they will be maintained
by this process without those burdens
of direct taxation which, in the present
condition of Puerto Rico. would be
such a terrific brake upon her progress
Now as to the charge that twin stifle
the Industries of Puerto Rico. Puerto
Rican coffee. representing five-eighths
of her product and of her labor, will
come in free; Puerto RlCan sugar and
tobacco will come into our ports in
4 competition with the sugar and tobac-
! 90 of Cuba. Puerto Rican sugar and
| tobacco, when the Dingley tariff APP
| piled equally to both of them, found a
| ready and remunerative market in this
| country. Under the operations of this
bill, by which full tariff duties are paid
by all others and only fifteen per sent
of them by Puerto Ricans, the Cuban
sugar man will pay in DinSley tariff
duties Sl.60 for every 100 pounds, while
? 10 pnartn