The consumption of wines amounts to 1,912,274 gallons, and the average duty is thirty-three cents. The duty on Madeira wine is fifty-eight cents, and it costs the importer one dollar and twenty-five cents. The duty therefore amounts to near fifty per cent. If the cost be taken at one dollar and fifty cents, the duty will be thirty-three and a third per cent. And yet it is not complained that it encourages smuggling.
The greater part of goods charged ad valorem are woollens, linens, manufactures of steel, brass, and articles of a similar kind, and muslins. In a muslin gown the additional duty will make a difference of about five cents. India muslins cost about fifteen cents a yard, and English about twenty-five cents. The additional duty will therefore be about three-eighths of a cent on India, and about three-fourths of a cent on English muslins. This I consider a burden which no one can feel. The additional duty on linens will be equally unfelt. In a bale of osnaburgs, which costs twenty cents, the additional duty on a hundred yards will not exceed fifty cents. So as to Irish linens and woollens. The difference in a coarse suit of clothes for a common man will not be more than twenty-five cents, and that of a better kind will not exceed one dollar and twenty-five cents. I am surprised, after taking this view of the operation of the proposed duty, that gentlemen should dwell upon the great burden it will impose, when it can, in truth, scarcely be felt by the poorest man in the country. It is indeed of no consideration but on account of the money raised by it, which I have estimated at about $750,000.
The gentleman from Connecticut thinks he has discovered in the second section a design that is not avowed, to wit: to liberate the present resources from their application to the support of the Navy. I wonder, however, that the gentleman, before he made this unguarded remark, did not read the section through. He would then have seen that the fund established by this act is to exist no longer than three months after the discontinuance of war in the Mediterranean. Nor is it true that the whole expenses of the Navy are in the Mediterranean. It is true, that at this time they are principally there. But there is likewise considerable expense incurred here in the navy yard on the ships, and on the half-pay of officers not in actual service. Whence the gentleman deduces the inference, when the bill itself declares that the new duties shall cease three months after the end of the war, I am altogether at a loss to comprehend. The duties are to cease with the occasion which produced them. When we shall no longer be at war, the war duties will be at an end.
Mr. Dana.—The gentleman from Maryland must surely have committed a mistake, when he said that there is no measure proposed on his side of the House which does not meet with opposition. When the President considered vigorous measures necessary against the Emperor of Morocco, the Journal will show that we entered into them unanimously. Nor is the objection now urged in any way an objection to the general measure contemplated. The only objection is to the imposition of unnecessary taxes. If the force necessary to be sent into the Mediterranean will not exceed an expense of $380,000, the necessity of the imposition of the proposed taxes surely does not exist. I admit that, after the force is raised, the President, in virtue of his authority as commander-in-chief, is to have its whole direction; but it is perfectly novel to me to learn that we are not previously to be informed of the extent to which it is proposed to carry it. If to the present number of vessels in service we add two frigates and five smaller vessels, they will require only an additional appropriation of $354,000. This, I believe, is the full extent of the additional force contemplated. As to raising money to that amount, I make no objection. Though I dislike laying duties thus in gross, yet I do not know that there can be any great objection to it. The sum proposed to be raised will give $750,000, which is more than double the sum necessary.
Is it proper thus to raise these duties, and hold forth to the nation that the commerce of the Mediterranean is so expensive? The late disaster in the Mediterranean is not of itself an adequate cause for the measure. I object to this measure, because it goes to give an improper impression of the causes of the bill.
Mr. Nicholson said, the gentleman from Connecticut seemed to consider the object too general; he would, in case the committee refused to strike out the first section, move to limit the application of the fund “to protect the commerce and seamen of the United States in the Mediterranean.”
The question was then taken on striking out the first section, and passed in the negative—ayes 26.
Mr. N. then offered the amendment just stated.
Mr. Eustis hoped the gentleman from Maryland would withdraw his amendment, as in a subsequent part of the bill the object is distinctly specified. It is altogether unnecessary; and if agreed to, it will be necessary to add, “or adjacent seas.”
Mr. Nicholson said, he considered the amendment as unnecessary; but as he had promised to make it, he could not withdraw it.