The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1913-04-12
4 FREE TRADE TARIFF.
Inconsistency and Injustice Of the
Fight Against susar-Eyen 4.Free
Trade" England Maintains su-
gar Tariff.

gar afiTT.
The following Well-timed and mas
terful editorial is copied from the New
Orleans Times-Democrat of the 9Th
instant:
1T is impossible to figure out upon
what historical, economic, financial
or other theory President Wilson and
the radical element of Democratic
congressman have based their free
sugar plan as the foundation stone
of tariff reform.
We can find neither in this coun-
try nor elsewhere any recorded at
tempt to correct the evils of exces-
slve protection and a faulty tariff by
starting off with free sugar; nor any
statesman who has accepted this
view. Mr.. Wilson, as a close stu
dent of history, knows the tariff of
the United States and must there.
fore know the views he now adj
vances We're shared by no other
president save one, who lived to
learn his mistake. His free sugar
theory has been rejected by politi-z
cal economists everywhere as :un-
SOUND and unsafe.
Perhaps no better instance of his
mistake can be cited than in Great
Britain, the home Of free trade, but
which none the less maintains the
sugar duty, having found it cannot
do without 1t. We have been told
SO frequently of the merits Of the
British tariff system, how it has
q fNrn prs4
facturer, one of the richest coun-
tries in the world, that thousands of
Americans have been converted to
British free trade. It assures free
raw material, we are told, and thus
encourages manufactures; it enables
one to buy in the cheapest markets,
and thus keeps prices down, and it
greatly reduces the cost of collecting
customs Our complicated system
requires an army of trained men, in
speetorss appraisers, as well as Gus
toms courts, etc; encourages SNUG
Cling and leads to scandals, graft
and thousand other evils. Would
that we had the simple customs sys-
TEN of England, is the cry of the
American tariff reformers.
That system is simple enough,
free from complications, and with
the cost of the collections ridicu-
'ously small as compared with our
own service. AS a matter of fact,
instead of long, complicated table
Of duties, nearly all the British GUS
toms revenue, 98 per cent of the to-
tai, is collected from half a dozen
articles of import-tobacco, sugar and
beer, wine and spirits, cof-
fee and tea-and among these sugar
has usually occupied second place
as a revenue producer. From the
duty on these articles Great Britain |
received for the last fiscal year re-
corded (1911) a total of 165, 900
pounds, or almost as much as from
The income tax and death duties.
The country could not do without
his revenue, and Parliament only |
recently discussed the advisabi1ity of |
Increasing it by advancing the duty |
on sugar.
There is no more interesting |
study from a financial and economic
point of view than the careful man I
Ter in which the British budget is
especially in the matter
If the collection of revenue. The.
of the eychequer5 figures
out how much the country needs, {
md how that sum can be raised.
With the least burden to the people,
he least injury and disturbance to
business. Every interest must be
and the British statesman
would be regarded as an unsafe
nan who put too heavy a burden on
my class, rich or poor-all must
,ear proportionately the cost of gov.
The demagogic cry, so
requently heard in America, that the
,oor man must be relieved of all
hare in this expense, would be
loWled down in England.
The present British chancellor Of T
he exchequer. Lloyd d-George, is prob
lbly as radical a Liberal as any in
england, the friend and favorite of
he poorer classes, but he would be
Fortified at the Wilson proposition of
rec sugar. or the suggestion that
he poor man should not contribute, /
n the duty on his sugar, coffee, tea
Ind beer, his fair share toward the +
evenue and the maintenance of the +
government.
From whatever point of view the
rec sugar proposition of Mr. Wilson
S considered-eVen. from the stand
ooint of free trade--it viii be found
unsatisfactory, certain to bring loss
md injury; and is without a recon-
nendation from any statesman or
political economist. The presidents
,lan is not the intelligent plan for
he settlement OF the tariff for
which the country has asked, and I
s certain to meet with failure soon
r or later. When the people see
low little relief it will assure them,
low much harm it may cause, it is
0 be feared they will reject and
.ondemn the Wilson plan Of tariff
eform as built on unsound founda-
ions. :,
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Swat the fly!