Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

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      "Mr. Benton commenced his speech, by saying that he was no advocate for unprofitable debate, and had no ambition to add his name to the catalogue of barren orators; but that there were cases in which speaking did good; cases in which moderate abilities produced great results, and he believed the question of repealing the salt tax to be one of those cases. It had certainly been so in England. There the salt tax had been overthrown by the labors of plain men, under circumstances much more unfavorable to their undertaking than exist here. The English salt tax had continued one hundred and fifty years. It was cherished by the ministry, to whom it yielded a million and a half sterling of revenue; it was defended by the domestic salt makers, to whom it gave a monopoly of the home market; it was consecrated by time, having subsisted for five generations; it was fortified by the habits of the people, who were born, and had grown gray under it; and it was sanctioned by the necessities of the State, which required every resource of rigorous taxation. Yet it was overthrown; and the overthrow was effected by two debates, conducted, not by the orators whose renown has filled the world – not by Sheridan, Burke, Pitt, and Fox – but by plain, business men – Mr. Calcraft, Mr. Curwen, and Mr. Egerton. These patriotic members of the British Parliament commenced the war upon the British salt tax in 1817, and finished it in 1822. They commenced with the omens and auspices all against them, and ended with complete success. They abolished the salt tax in toto. They swept it all off, bravely rejecting all compromises when they had got their adversaries half vanquished, and carrying their appeals home to the people, until they had roused a spirit before which the ministry quailed, the monopolizers trembled, the Parliament gave way, and the tax fell. This example is encouraging; it is full of consolation and of hope; it shows what zeal and perseverance can do in a good cause: it shows that the cause of truth and justice is triumphant when its advocates are bold and faithful. It leads to the conviction that the American salt tax will fall as the British tax did, as soon as the people shall see that its continuance is a burthen to them, without adequate advantage to the government, and that its repeal is in their own hands.

      "The enormous amount of the tax was the first point to which Mr. B. would direct his attention. He said it was near three hundred per cent. upon Liverpool blown, and four hundred per cent. upon alum salt; but as the Liverpool was a very inferior salt, and not much used in the West, he would confine his observations to the salt of Portugal and the West Indies, called by the general name of alum. The import price of this salt was from eight to nine cents a bushel of fifty-six pounds each, and the duty upon that bushel was twenty cents. Here was a tax of upwards of two hundred per cent. Then the merchant had his profit upon the duty as well as the cost of the article: and when it went through the hands of several merchants before it got to the consumer, each had his profit upon it; and whenever this profit amounted to fifty per cent. upon the duty, it was upwards of one hundred per cent. upon the salt. Then, the tariff laws have deprived the consumer of thirty-four pounds in the bushel, by substituting weight for measure, and that weight a false one. The true weight of a measured bushel of alum salt is eighty-four pounds; but the British tariff laws, for the sake of multiplying the bushels, and increasing the product of the tax, substituted weight for measure; and our tariff laws copied after them, and adopted their standard of fifty-six pounds to the bushel.

      "Mr. B. entered into statistical details, to show the aggregate amount of this tax, which he stated to be enormous, and contrary to every principle of taxation, even if taxes were so necessary as to justify the taxing of salt. He stated the importation of foreign salt, in 1829, at six millions of bushels, round numbers; the value seven hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, and the tax at twenty cents a bushel, one million two hundred thousand dollars, the merchant's profit upon that duty at fifty per cent. is six hundred thousand dollars; and the secret or hidden tax, in the shape of false weight for true measure, at the rate of thirty pounds in the bushel, was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Here, then, is taxation to the amount of about two millions and a quarter of dollars, upon an article costing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and that article one of prime necessity and universal use, ranking next after bread, in the catalogue of articles for human subsistence.

      "The distribution of this enormous tax upon the different sections of the Union, was the next object of Mr. B.'s inquiry; and, for this purpose, he viewed the Union under three great divisions – the Northeast, the South, and the West. To the northeast, and especially to some parts of it, he considered the salt tax to be no burthen, but rather a benefit and a money-making business. The fishing allowances and bounties produced this effect. In consideration of the salt duty, the curers and exporters of fish are allowed money out of the treasury, to the amount, as it was intended, of the salt duty paid by them; but it has been proved to be twice as much. The annual allowance is about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the aggregate drawn from the treasury since the first imposition of the salt duty in 1789, is shown by the treasury returns to be five millions of dollars. Much of this is drawn by undue means, as is shown by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, at the commencement of the present session, page eight of the annual report on the finances. The Northeast makes much salt at home, and chiefly by solar evaporation, which fits it for curing fish and provisions. Much of it is proved, by the returns of the salt makers, to be used in the fisheries, while the fisheries are drawing money from the treasury under the laws which intended to indemnify them for the duty paid on foreign salt. To this section of the Union, then, the salt tax is not felt as a burthen.

      "Let us proceed to the South. In this section there are but few salt works, and no bounties or allowances, as there are no fisheries. The consumers are thrown almost entirely upon the foreign supply, and chiefly use the Liverpool blown. The import price of this is about fifteen cents a bushel; the weight and strength is less than that of alum salt; and the tax falls heavily and directly upon the people, to the whole amount of their consumption. It is a heavy burthen upon the South.

      "The West is the last section to be viewed, and it will be found to be the true seat of the most oppressive operations of the salt tax. The domestic supply is high in price, deficient in quantity, and altogether unfit for one of the greatest purposes for which salt is there wanted – curing provisions for exportation. A foreign supply is indispensable, and alum salt is the kind used. The import price of this kind, from the West Indies, is nine cents a bushel; from Portugal, eight cents a bushel. At these prices, the West could be supplied with this salt at New Orleans, if the duty was abolished; but, in consequence of the duty, it costs thirty-seven and a half cents per bushel there, being four times the import price of the article, and seventy-five cents per bushel at Louisville and other central parts of the valley of the Mississippi. This enormous price, resolved into its component parts, is thus made up: 1. Eight or nine cents a bushel for the salt. 2. Twenty cents for duty. 3. Eight or ten cents for merchant's profit at New Orleans. 4. Sixteen or seventeen cents for freight to Louisville. 5. Fifteen or twenty cents for the second merchant's profit, who counts his per centum on his whole outlay. In all, about seventy-five cents for a bushel of fifty pounds, which, if there was no duty, and the tariff regulations of weight for measure abolished, would be bought in New Orleans, by the measured bushel of eighty pounds weight, for eight or nine cents, and would be brought up the river, by steamboats, at the rate of thirty-three and a third cents per hundred weight. It thus appears that the salt tax falls heaviest upon the West. It is an error to suppose that the South is the greatest sufferer. The West wants it for every purpose the South does, and two great purposes besides – curing provision for export, and salting stock. The West uses alum salt, and on this the duty is heaviest, because the price is lower, and the weight greater. Twenty cents on salt which costs eight or nine cents a bushel is a much heavier duty than on that which costs fifteen cents; and then the deception in the substitution of weight for measure is much greater in alum salt, which weighs so much more than the Liverpool blown. Like the South, the West receives no bounties or allowances on account of the salt duties. This may be fair in the South, where the imported salt is not re-exported upon fish or provisions; but it is unfair in the West, where the exportation of beef, pork, bacon, cheese, and butter, is prodigious, and the foreign salt re-exported upon the whole of it.

      "Mr. СКАЧАТЬ