Why Increase The Coal Duty?

Under the existing tariff bituminoua coal pays 40 ceuts a ton. The Dingley bill proposes to rnake this 75 cents. In 1895-0 the irnports of bituniiuous coal into the United States were 1,243,835 tons. The exports were 2,246,284. The figures f or Ganada were: Iroported f rom Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc, 123,404 tons; from Quebec, Ontario, etc., 39,987; froru British Coluinbia, 627,257; exports to these three divisious respectively, 413 tons, 1,671,302 and 3,094. Canada now proposes in case the Dingley rate is imposed to retalíate by a high duty on our coal, which will certainly not stimulate pxports. Here is an export business worth twice as much as the correspondiug import business, and, it is proposed to run the risk of ruining the forruer 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 assuruing that imports do not fall off, it is hardly worth while for the sake of a paltry $350,000 to tempt Canada into ruiuing 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. "