The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1909-05-06
THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1909.

John G. Carlisle filed with the senate
finance committee last week brief con
tanning suggestions in support OF duty
on coffee. Mr.. Carlisles thorough
knowledge of the tariff question lends
more than ordinary interest to the
subject under discussion. After stating
that the pending bill will not produce
sufficient revenue for the support of the
government, Mr. Carlisle states that
duty of four cents pound on the pres
ent annual consumption of coffee would
produce revenue of S39, 100000.
Such duty, he believes, would not
burden the consumer to any appreciate
extent. He says the average price OF
coffee brought into the United States
during the last ten years has not exceed
ed 81 cents a pound for the green berry
After being roasted it is sold to the con
sinner at a profit of from LOO to l5o per
cent. 1t is Mr.. Carlisles belief that the
margin of profit is so large that the duty
will be deducted from the profit and not
charged TO the consumer. De quotes
those who are engaged in selling coffee
az saving that they will be compelled to
bear the whole burden. Mr.. Carlisle
adds: whether the policy of protection
is or is not beneficial in its effects upon
the whole country is not question FOR
II A.
discussion in connection with the partl-
cular subject now presented. 1t is suifl'
cent to say that so long as that policy Is
adhered to it should be applied as I'M
partially az possible. There is no SUCH
thing "A a free breakfast table within
the dominions Of the United States
The laborers who produce coffee, as well
az the other people who depend upon
that staple for very important part of
their trade with the outside world, are
taxed upon their clothing, THEFT medi-
cine, their building materials, the tools
and implements used in their occupa'
tons, and on their food, in some cases
as high HI 100 per cent II thirty-nine
or forty million dollars can be raised
annually for the use of the government
by the imposition o. duty on imported
coffee, why should it not he done? Such
duty ought not to be Objectionable to
either class Of political economists, for
the whole amount of the duty goes into
the public treasury and the protection
afforded is precisely the same az If the
duty had been imposed for the purpose
Of protection only.
Mr.. Carlsles argument for tariff
on coffee is unanswerable. If we must
have duties at all, coffee duty is right.
IL is essentially revenue tariff, yiel-
ding a NAHUM amount of revenue with
minimum amount of subsidy. But our
Legislators in congress are too cowardly
10 levy it. The cry for a free breakfast
table" scares them. The tax Is not in.
direct enough to escape the objections
Of the tax payer He sees too plainly
that it is a tax. 1t is safer for the leg
islators to gouge five dollars out Of him
with a protective duty which he does
not realize rather than collect one dollar
from him by means of a revenue duty
which be does realize.
Moreover duty on coffee would yield
so much revenue that It would Justify
material reductions in protective duties,
and this the protected interests oppose,
Hence a coffee duty is resisted not only
by the short-sighted consumer bnt by
the long sighted benedciaries Of the pro,
tective duties
That is why the coffee duty imposed
in the first draft of the Payne Bill was
eliminated Even the Democrats who
profess their desire to live and die for
revenue only tariff would not have the
revenue duty on coffee.