Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1891 — THE "FREE SUGAR” FRAUD. [ARTICLE]

THE "FREE SUGAR” FRAUD.

|lndianapolis Sentinel.] The Louisville Courier-Journal remarks: The democratic administration left a surplus of $100,000,000. The first republican congress creates a deficit of at least $50,000,000. To which the Indianapolis Journal responds: And more than that amount es revenue was cut off by removing the duty on sugar. The people can stand a “deficit" caused by tie removal of a tax on one of the prime necessaries of life. Haig-ho! So the duty on 'sugar is a tax, is it? And its repeal is a relief to the people, is it? What an amazing admission to’come from a paper which has devoted hundreds of columns during the last few years toinsistance that the tariff is not a tax, and that whoever says it is is a parrot and a villain! However, we shall doubtless hear a good deal from the organs of the monopoly tariff for some time to come about the enormous relief afforded to tho people by the remission of the sugar tax. These organs will, no doubt, frequently be found insisting in the very same issues that the tariff is not a tax; that its effect is to reduce to consumers the price of the articles upon which it is levied, and that the ■repeal of duties always results in higher prices to consumers. But the advocacy of protectionism necessarily involves suoh inconsistencies and contradictions. Now what are the facts about this sugar tax? The tax on raw sugar has been repealed, to take effect April 1. The tax on refined •ugar has been reduced to six tenths of a cent per pound, taking effect on the same date. Thus, after April 1, the sugar trust, embracing most of the sugar refineries of the country, will get its raw material free. The consumers of sugar will, however, have to pay a tax of six-tenths of a cent* on every pound they use for the benefit of the sugar trust. The people will also be taxi d to pay to i few of their number a bounty or bonus of 2 cents on every poimd of sugar made in ibe United States whethfrom sugar enne, sorghum, beet-root or maple sap. It is not likely that the people will get much relief out of this ar■rangement. The sugar tax, or duty, which was chiefly a revenue tax, was repealed in order to ass ord a pretext for retaining or increasing the duties or taxes on clothing, tin-plate, salt, iron are, lumber, and a thousand otheAnecessaries of life, or raw materials of* important industries. It yielded to tl»a national ti-easury $54,896,437.38 during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1889. Congress threw away this revenue in order to' save the manufacturer! who had the fat fried out of them in 1888 from any loss' of “protection,” and to humbug the people into the notion that it had done something for them. At the sume time it imposed a new taxon the people amounting for the first year to more than $lO, UUO.UhO, and certain to inorease annually, which is to be p da. not into the public treasury for the benefit of the whole people, but into the pockets of a few sugar planters in Louisiana and maple growers in' Vsmobt, Ti e time was when the American people . could have been deceived by this fraud. Bu this time h s passed. The people have had their eyes opened. 'They are not to be humbugged by the false and fraudulent cry of cheap sugar any more than by Blaine’s reciprocity schemes or by mane drivel about the Cobden club, British gold and the pauper labor of Fuiope.

Last tear tne pension agents absorbed two and a half millions of the money that ■was paid by the p nsion bureau to the old soldiers or their families. This year, it is said, they will absorb three millions, and next year they will lev a tribute of five millions upon the pensioners. These barnacles ought 10 be suppressed. Thev are of no me to the pensioner. Every man who has a just claim can get it allowed, without their intervention. They are resonsible for most of the fraudulent pensioners, who. according to careful estimate. amount to about 47 percent, of ths entire roll. Congress ought to pass a law making it the duty of every postmaster to fill out. Lee of ch ig i, the necessary blanks for pension a piicants and file them with the government. This would relievo the pensioners from a great burden and save the public treasury untold millions of dollars during the next few years.—Ex'