Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1897 — Why Increase the Coal Duty? [ARTICLE]

Why Increase the Coal Duty?

Under the existing tariff bituminous coal pays 40 cents a ton. The Dingley bill proposes to make this 75 cents. In 1895-6 the imports of bituminous coal into the United States were 1,248,885 tons. The exports were 2,246,284. The figures for Canada were: Imported from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc., 123,404 tons; from Quebec, Ontario, etc., 89,987; from British Columbia, 627,257; exports to these three divisions respectively, 413 tons, 1,671,802 and 8,094. Canada now proposes in case the Dingley rate is imposed to retaliate by a high duty an our coal, which will certainly not stimulate exports. Here is an export business worth twice as much as the corresponding import .business, and it is proposed to run the risk of ruining the former for the sake of screwing $350,000 taxes out of the latter, and this on the plea of reviving American industry. Can any sane man fail to see that, even assuming that imports do not fall off, it is hardly worth while for the sake of a paltry $350,000 to tempt Canada into ruining an established business nearly twice as large as that which is to yield the tax? Yet this is the way in which “the old thing works.”