Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/766

744 of tea in the United States is about 94,000,000 pounds, and of coffee about 600,000,000 pounds; the importation of these two commodities in 1895 having been, however, considerably greater—namely, of tea, 97,168,866 pounds, and of coffee, 655,564,000 pounds. A levy of three cents a pound on tea and three cents a pound on coffee would yield a present annual revenue in excess of $20,000,000, and represent an ad-valorem rate of about twenty per cent on both commodities—rates that would probably not interfere with their popular consumption in the least degree. If sugar, a commodity of more indispensible popular use, is regarded as not overburdened by a tax of forty per cent ad valorem, tea and coffee could easily stand a like duty. This would make the tax on each article six cents a pound, with an accruing revenue at the present rate of consumption of more than $40,000,000 per annum. Under the revenue system existing in 1870, coffee was taxed five cents a pound and tea twenty five cents, and the aggregate revenue from both commodities was $22,881,000. The arguments in opposition to imposing a duty on imports of tea and coffee are, mainly, two: First, that it is inexpedient to antagonize a free breakfast table; second, that customs taxes ought not to be imposed on the imports of comrnodities not produced in the United States.

Now the popular phrase "a free breakfast table" is a mere sentimental expression, and in relation to fiscal matters an absurdity, even if its authorship be attributed to as high authority as Mr. Gladstone. A free breakfast table, in the sense of the complete exemption of all its constituents from taxation, is utterly impossible in a civilized country where taxation is essential to the support of a government; and the only place where an approximate result could be attained would be some tropical isle where a native obtains his breakfast by pulling a banana from a tree, extracting a yam from the ground, or catching something which the sea supplies gratuitously. Think of the nature of a statute which, in order to meet the requirements of a free breakfast table in the United States, would exempt from taxation everything generally used in connection therewith—china, crockery, earthenware, glass, hardware, fish, flesh, cereals, fruits, and vegetables—and make the same subject to taxation to meet the requirements for revenue when otherwise utilized. The second antagonizing argument is equally unwarranted and absurd. Customs taxes on the importation of articles not produced in this country are the only taxes on imports in respect to which the people can have an assurance that, apart from the small cost of assessing and collecting, the Government will certainly receive all that they pay; and any man who argues to the contrary does not know what he is talking about, or has the idea that taxes on