On motion, the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
Tuesday, May 12.
Duties on Imports.
The House again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, Mr. Page in the chair, on the Impost Bill.
The article of molasses being still under consideration:
Mr. Ames wished to reply to the observation made yesterday by the gentleman from Virginia. Does that gentleman, said he, recollect, if we lay an excise, we prevent the burthen from being imposed upon the poor for their subsistence, as molasses, in the raw state, will be lightly taxed? In the next place, it is more favorable to the importers of that article than the impost; it does not require so large a proportion of their capital to be advanced in payment of duties, nor do they run the risk of bad debts, because it may be so regulated that the retailer shall secure the duty. Another reason is, it will save the expense of a numerous host of custom-house officers, tide-waiters, &c. These considerations proved, that if the excise was no better than an impost, it was no worse; and as the duty would be better collected, and give less reason for smuggling, which, above all things, was dangerous to the revenue, it was sufficient to warrant the committee in giving the excise duty a preference.
Mr. Goodhue would not trouble the House long on the subject; but begged leave to repeat the manner in which the molasses trade was connected with the fisheries, and the fisheries with the navigation; that, if the first is injured, the other two are wounded through its side. About three-fifths of all the fish that are put up for that market, are of an inferior quality, and would not sell elsewhere. The French would not permit us to carry them there, but because we take their molasses in exchange; they will not let their colonies send the molasses to France, lest it interfere with their brandy. Now, any impediment to the exportation of molasses, will prevent the exportation of fish; if we cannot export the fish, for what purpose shall we continue our fisheries? And if they are given up, how are we to form seamen to man our future navy?
Mr. Madison said his mind was incapable of discovering any plan that would answer the purpose the committee have in view, and not produce greater evils than the one under consideration. He thought an excise very objectionable, but as no actual proposition for entering into such a system was before the committee, he forbore to say any thing further about it. He admitted an excise would obviate in part some of the difficulties; but he did not think the answer given to his argument altogether satisfactory; yet there was another argument he urged on a former occasion remaining unanswered—it was, that, at this moment, the fisheries, distilleries, and all their connections, were laboring under heavier duties than what is now proposed; true, the duty is collected in a different mode, but it affects the consumer in the same manner. The gentlemen have said, to be sure, that the duty is evaded; but if half is collected, it amounts to more than six cents per gallon.
It is said that a tax on molasses will be unpopular, but not more so than a tax on salt. Can gentlemen state more serious apprehensions in the former than the latter case? yet the committee did not forego a productive fund, because the article was a necessary of life, and in general consumption. If there is the disposition that is represented for people to complain of the oppression of Government, have not the citizens of the Southern States more just ground for complaint than others? The system can only be acceptable to them, because it is essentially necessary to be adopted for the public good.
Gentlemen argue, that a tax on molasses is unpopular, and prove it by experience under the British Government. If this is to be adduced as a proof of the popularity of a measure, what are we to say with respect to a tax on tea? Gentlemen remembered, no doubt, how odious this kind of tax was thought to be throughout America; yet the House had, without hesitation, laid a considerable duty upon it. He did not imagine that a duty on either of those articles was in itself objectionable; it was the principle upon which the tax was laid that made them unpopular under the British Government.