CHEAP COAL.
Speech in the Senate, on an Amendment to the Tariff Bill, January 29, 1867.
January 29th, the Senate having under consideration the bill to provide increased revenue from imports, known as the Tariff Bill, Mr. Sumner moved the following:—
“On all bituminous coal mined and imported from any place not more than thirty degrees of longitude east of Washington, fifty cents per ton of twenty-eight bushels, eighty pounds to the bushel.”
The effect of this amendment would be to reduce the duty from $1.50 to 50 cents a ton.
MR. PRESIDENT,—The object of the amendment is to bring the bill back where it was at first. The Senate will remember that in committee a motion prevailed by which the duty of 50 cents per ton on the coal mentioned was raised to $1.50. I am at a loss to understand the precise object of this increased tax on coal. There are strong reasons against any tax on coal; and the reasons are stronger still against this increased tax. Its movers must have an object. What is it?
It seems that there are imported into the United States about 500,000 tons, being 350,000 from the British Provinces and 150,000 from Great Britain; and this coal is to be taxed at the rate of $1.50 a ton in gold. If the same amount of importation continued, this tax would yield $750,000 in gold,—a handsome addition to the revenue. But I am sure the tax is not imposed on this account. It is imposed with some vague hope of benefit to the coal interest. But here, as we look at it, we are mystified. Is it supposed that the price of coal throughout the country will be raised to this extent? The idea is monstrous. There are some 22,000,000 tons now produced, which, if raised in price according to this tax, will cost the country 33,000,000 gold dollars in addition to the present price. This might be advantageous to certain proprietors, but it must be damaging to the country. Nobody can expect this. The object, then, is something else. I will not say that it is merely to take advantage of the States that do not produce coal, for this would be sheer oppression. I suppose that it must be to exclude foreign coal, and to that extent open the market for domestic coal.
But this tax will be positively oppressive to coal-purchasers in New England, to say nothing of New York. Nature has denied coal to this region of country,—or rather, Nature has placed the natural supply for this region outside our political jurisdiction. It is in Nova Scotia, on the other side of our boundary line. Coal in abundance is there, easily accessible by water, and therefore transported at comparatively small cost. Another part of our country has a different supply. On the other side of the mountain-ridge separating the sea-coast from the valleys of the West is an infinite coal-field, the source of untold wealth, which, beginning in the mountains and filling West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, stretches through the valley of the Ohio, enriching the States that border upon it, and then, crossing the Mississippi, extends through other States beyond, even to Colorado. This is the greatest coal-field, as it is also the greatest corn-field, in the world. It is magnificent beyond comparison. This is the natural resource for the immense region west of the Alleghanies. But why should New England, which has a natural resource comparatively near at home, be compelled at great sacrifice to drag her coal from these distant supplies?
I hear of complaint at Pittsburg, where the price of coal is only two dollars a ton, currency. But imported coal in New England costs at the mine two dollars a ton, gold. Add three or four dollars a ton for freight. And now it is proposed to pile on this a duty of more than two dollars, currency. If Pittsburg complains of coal at two dollars a ton, what must Boston say, when you make it nine dollars? Is this just? Is it practically wise? But I forget: there can be no wisdom without justice.