74 



WHO PAYS THE DUTY ? 



nesses to the facts coincide in their testimony, and can not be mis 

 taken. If experience is any test of knowledge, the Canadians 

 pay the duties on imports from Canada into the United States. 

 Now, what is proposed by the so-called reciprocity treaty? 

 Why, to abolish the duties, and thus to transfer their burdens from 

 the shoulders of Canadian farmers to the shoulders of American 

 farmers, the great majority of whom are Western farmers, by rein 

 forcing and strengthening the former, to the extent of the tariff 

 amounts they have been paying out of their own pockets in their 

 competition with the latter for the sale of grain in our markets. 

 If Canadian farmers can afford to pay a tax of 20 cents, gold, 

 equal now to 22 cents currency, on every bushel of wheat they 

 export to the United States, then, were the duty abolished, they 

 could add the 22 cents to their prices and sell just as many bushels 

 on our soil as they do at present. Consequently, the reciprocity 

 treaty would add 22 cents per bushel to the prices they now re 

 ceive, and give that average sum to them as a free gift at the ex 

 pense of our national revenues, the deficit having to be made up 

 by imposing additional taxes upon other objects of taxation. But if 

 Canadian farmers should conclude to overwhelm their Western com 

 petitors, then they could employ their gain of 22 cents per bushel 

 in cutting down and overmastering the prices of Western wheat. 

 In every such contest they would have an advantage of 22 cents 

 per bushel more than they have now. Even under the tariff as 

 it is, they sent into the State of New York alone no less than 

 5,649,798 bushels in the five years ended June 30, 1874. The 

 Chicago Tribune has the folly to declare that this would not be in 

 jurious to the West, but a positive benefit. 



Not long ago the Ontario Reformer, a representative journal of 

 the Dominion, in discussing the question, &quot; Do consumers pay 

 duty?&quot; used the following very decisive language : 



The crop of wheat in the United States is officially estimated at 240,000,000 of 

 bushels. We, as a Dominion, imported more wheat and flour than we exported 

 in 1872, as per our government official returns. It is, therefore, very evident 

 that we could not influence in the least degree the market price of wheat in the 

 United States, and that if we send our wheat there we lose the duty. The propor 

 tion of our surphis of horses, cattle, sheep, and wool to the amount they consume 

 is so very small that it is equally plain thatjwe can not influence the price in their 

 market, and that we lose the duty. The Americans consumed last year nearly 

 40,000,000 bushels of barley, of which we gave about one-tentb. If one-tenth 



