Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/767

Rh imports should be levied, not merely for revenue and tHe support of the state, but also in furtherance of some individual interests.

—Next in importance to the domestic consumption of distilled spirits as an easily available source of national revenue is the consumption of imported sugars. In the twenty-four years from 1867 to 1890, when imported sugars paid duties, the lowest sum received in any one year was $31,000,000 (in 1872), and the highest $58,000,000 (in 1887). After 1885 to 1890 inclusive at least $50,000,000 annually could be counted upon from this one item of imports, and the duty, estimated on an ad-valorem basis, varied from sixty-two to seventy-eight per cent, according to the fluctuations in the price of sugar. Such a long average degree of taxation made but little change in the consumption of the country, distributed itself very evenly over the whole population, and averaged less than seventy cents per capita of a population ranging from fifty to sixty millions. After April, 1891, duties on sugars were abolished, except half a cent a pound on sugar above No. 16 (continued with a view of protecting the refining interests of the United States), on confectionery, and small discriminating duties on sugars coming from countries which are believed to pay a bounty on exported sugars. The results of this extraordinary policy, which has been not inaptly characterized as one of the most disgraceful pieces of fiscal legislation ever perpetrated in a free country, was that the duty on imported sugars, which amounted to over $50,000,000 in 1891, ran down to $176,795 in 1892, and $163,956 in 1894. The Government, moreover, with a practical repeal of all duties on raw sugars, began the disbursement of money for bounties on domestic sugar, which amounted in round numbers since 1892 to about $35,000,000. Increased importations brought up the revenue from sugar to $15,599,342 in 1895, and $29,897,000 in 1896, the latter representing an import of 3,666,842,395 pounds, which, if subjected to a duty of one cent per pound, would have yielded a revenue of $36,666,000.

With the absolute necessity for increased revenue to meet increased expenditures, there is no good reason why the duties on the import of sugars should not be so adjusted as to insure a permanent annual revenue of at least $50,000,000, which amount, with a consuming population smaller by at least ten millions, was exceeded in 1885. During the month of January, 1897, the import price of sugar was two cents per pound for cane and one and nine tenths for beet. If on this basis of import prices the average rate of duty under the present tariff—namely, forty per cent—were levied, only four fifths of a cent a pound duty would be collected.

A question of importance which next presents itself, and about