Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/168

156 Thus, in the case of distilled spirits, the taxation was advanced in successive years from twenty cents per gallon to sixty cents, next to a dollar and fifty cents, and finally to two dollars per gallon, and in each of these instances, and particularly after the imposition of the first two and lowest rates, the distillers and speculators reckoned, with a great degree of certainty, that a further large advance would be enacted, and that the new law would not be made retroactive or applicable to spirits distilled and assessed previously and at lower rates. In this they were not disappointed, for Congress, under the influences to which it was subjected, did virtually legislate in each instance in the manner expected, and thus gave occasion for the realization of profits in strict conformity with law by the holders of stocks made in anticipation of the several advances, which can not be estimated at a less aggregate than one hundred millions of dollars. Thus, the evidence before the United States Revenue Commission in 1865-'66 showed that there was on the 1st of January, 1864, a stock of tax-paid distilled spirits, made in anticipation of an increased tax, sufficient to meet all the requirements of the country for a period of six months, and on each gallon of this quantity, a profit or revenue, which did not accrue to the Government, of from sixty cents to a dollar and forty cents per gallon was realized. And yet, with this lesson of costly experience before it, the Fifty-third Congress, in advancing the tax on distilled spirits from ninety cents to a dollar and ten cents per gallon, afforded again such facilities to distillers and speculators, for anticipating such advance, as to legislate into their pockets at least ten millions of dollars.

In the case of cotton, which advanced mainly by reason of conditions affecting its production or distribution, it was shown by actual calculation, in respect to one manufacturing corporation in New England, that if they had at the commencement of the war burned their mills, lost their insurance, and sunk their capital other than was invested in cotton, and had subsequently sold their cotton at the highest price obtainable in place of manufacturing it, the result would have afforded to the stockholders an annuity of at least twelve per cent on their original investments.

How much the cost of the war and its expression in the form of debt, were unnecessarily increased by this state of affairs, has not until very recently been taken into account by writers on the fiscal history of this period, and probably can not be accurately estimated. But the following data throw great light on the subject: Thus, assuming the general average of prices in the loyal States of the Union before the war, or, more precisely, in 1860, at 100, the average from 1860 to 1865 was 186·71. But for the last year of the war, or in 1865, it was 216·81, and it was during this