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. A A T VI A .1 H HHHUT U B 3t H ' 

 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



unskilled in the duties of his office, for the judg- 

 ment of a man whose profits depend directly on 

 his skill, and whose interest, which is a part of 

 the public interest, leads him to learn the business 

 he pursues. 



Commercial policy is also opposed to a tax on 

 commodities. Such a tax is the compulsory to- 

 bacco and flour inspection. The man who is com- 

 pelled to ship inspected flour in barrels pays, ac- 

 cording to calculations submitted above, 61 cents 

 per barrel ; or 12J cents per bushel on wheat. It 

 has been stated that $50,006 will build ?nd equip 

 a mill capable of turning out 300 barrels of flour 

 per day ; and that by drawing bills on the flour as 

 each cargo goes forward, $30,000 is capital suffi- 

 cient to carry on the business. At this rate it will 

 require about $1,000,000 to make 700,000 barrels 

 of flour at 61 cents per barrel. The addition to the 

 capital necessary to conduct the business varies 

 from 6 to 10 per cent., according to the variation in 

 the price of wheat, and makes just that much dis- 

 crimination against a rising and important branch of 

 manufactories, tending to drive capital into other 

 pursuits, and to compel the grower of wheat to 

 seek his market outside the Commonwealth. Upon 

 this outlay the miller charges, as upon any other 

 portion of his investment, though in fact it is so 

 much withdrawn from actual production or divert- 

 ed to unprofitable channels. It reduces competi- 

 tion, and in so far gives him a monopoly, while it 

 injures him by making it necessary to raise the 

 price of his flour, and so checks the demand. It 

 thus seems that a tax on commodities, which is 

 an indirect tax on profits, takes more out of the 

 pockets of the payer than it puts into the hands 

 of the receiver. This shows a dead loss to some- 

 body. It is not to the miller, who only advances the 

 tax, but it is to the consumer or producer. If to 

 the producer, then it is a charge on his crop, and 

 an additional tax on his production, just as if he 

 had had to expend that much more in making the 

 crop. If to the consumer, then it either drives 

 him to other markets, or deprives us of just &o much 

 advantage as might be derived from the removal 

 of the tax. Thus, if flour were worth $10 per bar- 

 rel, a tax of 61 cents remitted to our producer 

 would enable our millers to take $9 39 per barrel, 

 and thus get the control of the market by under- 

 selling competitors. On the same principle it 

 would enable a miller to extend his business by the 

 per centage of the tax, thus creating a greater de- 

 mand for wheat. 



But perhaps a still more important view of the 

 commercial impolicy of these laws is derived from 

 a consideration of their influence on our commer- 

 cial relations with other States — their action as 

 transit duties. Conceding, argumentatively, the 

 right to impose such a tax on their products as a 

 .condition of shipment from our ports, let us at- 



tempt to estimate its effect on our commerce. Vir- 

 ginia has entered on the race of competition for the 

 trade of the great West. A canal and two rail road* 

 with lateral branches, are stretched out towards that 

 quarter. The future increase of that trade baffle* 

 calculation ; its present immensity cannot be real- 

 ized from the unusual array of figures that exhi- 

 bit its amount ; detailed illustration can alone 

 impress its magnitude on the apprehension ; and 

 we shall argue from a single example of that na- 

 ture. The wheat of Tennessee has been found 

 upon trial in Richmond to be as good as our own. 

 Eight of her fertile counties, tributary to the Vir- 

 ginia and Tennessee road, with no other outlet, and 

 as yet devoid of that, produce 300,000 bushels of 

 wheat. If twelve of the less fertile counties of 

 the valley of Virginia produce 4,000,000 bushels ; 

 if the county of Amelia, under the recent stimu- 

 lus of rail roads and guano, has increased her 

 crop from 25,000 to 360,000,000 bushels ; if one 

 farm that we know of has risen in 13 years from ■ 

 600 to 75,000 bushels, or 1250 per cent increase; 

 it will be safe to calculate the future increase of 

 those counties at 3,600,000 bushels, or 720,000 bar- 

 rels flour, an excess nearly doubling the present 

 export of Richmond. Supposing a barrel to be an 

 incumbrance— the tax under our present laws om 

 this fr action of our expected tribute is $432,000, 

 of which neither State nor the rail road gets one 

 cent. Now if the transportation be 60 cents per 

 barrel, as on the basis of the charges on the road 

 from Wheeling to Baltimore— 75 cents per barrel 

 —it may be assumed to be, the repeal of our law, 

 operating a remission of the tax, would be equi- 

 valent in its effects on the trade to free transporta- 

 tion of the flour. Here is the greatest damage 

 of these laws ; prospective it may be, but actual 

 it will be, if they are not repealed. 



Let us remember that the simple requirement 

 to brand Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio tobacco aa 

 " Western," has driven that description of produce 

 to .Baltimore and curtailed our market by nearly 

 one half, and we may see how sensitive is trade, 

 and how incommensurate to the cause is the effect 

 of absurd legislation or improper tribute. Already 

 have our laws compelled North Carolina flour r 

 which cannot get barrels, and uses sacks perforce, 

 to go to sea through Charleston harbour. We 

 may rely on it that a release from these duties is 

 one of the directions that competition will take. 

 New York, ever sagacious and enlightened ia 

 commerce, has begun to feel her way thither, and 

 sooner or later we must follow her example. Why 

 not anticipate it 1 The principle already prevail* 

 as the settled policy of the Federal government, 

 which, by Mr. Hunter's warehousing system, re- 

 mits all transit duties, and is content, as we should 

 be, to find its profit in the carriage and the com- 

 missions. It is mortifying to find Virginia claim- 



