The Southern Cotton Trade and the Excise Laws [pp. 527-530]

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.
527
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.
I.-THE SOUTHERN COTTON TRADE AND THE EXCISE LAWS.
TIlE merchants of New Orleans have memorialized the Secretary of the Treasury in regard to the oppressiveness of the system for collecting the Direct Tax
upon Cotton, and sent a Commission to Washington upon the subject.
The Memorial assigns the reasons, and proposes the changes given below, and
was prepared by the following named gentlemen: John Watt, W. M. Pinkard,
A. H. May, S. B. Buckner, F. S. Ilerron, R. Nugent, C. Fellowes, and A. Miltenberger.
1. The cost of weighing will be greater to the planter in the country than at
the point of sale. He must either haul his cotton, at a heavy expense, to a point
designated for weighing, or he must pay the expenses of the assessor to his plantation in addition to other costs of weighing.
2. Before moving his cotton he must await the convenience and the pleasure
of the assessor, when oftentimes he may thus lose the opportunity of shipping
his crop. On many of the tributaries of the main rivers the season of navigation continues but a short time, and the opportunity of shipment once lost, it does
not return for a year. The sickness or neglect of an assessor might thus result disastrously to an entire district. It is the interest of the planter, as wvell
to realize on his crop as to avoid the risk of its destruction, to ship it to market as
rapidly as it is packed and baled. In this way he might realize on much of his
crop as early as October or November. Under the present system he may be compelled to await until January the bailing of his entire crop, thus incurring the risk
of its destruction by fire-or he must submit to paying the expenses of repeated
journeys of the assessor to weigh, mark, and bond his crop for separate shipments
of different portions. And it will often happen that even where the planter and
assessor will agree in all respects in reference to compensation, the numerous
calls upon the latter from different planters in widely separated localities will
necessarily occasion delay which may prove fatal to the interests of the planter.
3. Tliough there are very many districts, they are still of such extent, and the
communications are so difficult, that it will be impracticable for the assessors to
visit the numerous plantations and attend to the weighing of cotton, without so
multiplying the number of assessors as to defeat the objects of the revenue law.
Cotton which might already have been in the market is, we are assured, now
awaiting at various points, and in an exposed condition, the pleasure or convenience of the weighers.
4. The difficulties thus interposed in the way of executing their duty will be
a strong temptation to Government agents to certify to constructive weights, in
order to overcome the impracticabilities of the regulations, or to avoid difficult and
unpleasant journeys; and may thus lead to extensive frauds upon the -revenue,
injurious alike to the planter and to the Government.
5. Many of the points designated for weighing cotton are so inconvenient and
so inaccessible to a majority of the planters, that the cost of taking their cotton
to the place appointed would be double that of taking it to New Orleans, or
Memphis, or Mobile. Some of these points seem to have been selected without
any reference to the convenience of the planter, and some of them are practically inaccessible at some periods of the year.
6. The majority of the points where cotton is usually shipped by planters-have not been designated as weighing points.
7. On the navigable streams the majority of planters have shipping points on
their own places, or very convenient to their plantations. It is an unnecessary
hardship to require them, at great cost, to ship from another point especially
designated for'*ighing cotton, when the Government cau derive no possible
advantage from imposing such a hardship and expense.
8. The majority of planters must depend upon the sale of their cotton to
enable them to pay their tax. They must therefore, either sacrifice their cotton
by selling to those who wish to speculate upon the necessities, or they must