A REPORT 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Flour and Hay Inspection 
 
 LAWS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE OK LOUISIANA 
 
 TO THE 
 
 COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW ORLEANS PRODUCE EXCHANGE. 
 
 — P.Y— 
 
 C. B. BUDDECKE. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/reportonflourhayOObudd 
 

 33 * ) 
 B 
 
 New Orleans, May 26th, 1888. 
 
 To the Honorable Committee on Legislation 
 
 of the New Orleans Produce Exchange: 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Permit me to submit the following 
 views on the subject of the Hour and hay inspection 
 laws of the State of Louisiana. 
 
 These laws present for consideration a question of 
 very grave importance, as they involve a principle 
 of the highest character, and affect materially the 
 general welfare of the people of the City of New 
 Orleans and of the State of Louisiana. 
 
 They create and justify only a principle of evil, 
 and form precedents for a series of endless evils. 
 
 The character of this principle of evil is easily 
 illustrated by applying it to its fullest extent. 
 
 The same principle which justifies a forced inspec¬ 
 tion of Hour and hay and a tax on them, also 
 justifies a forced inspection of all other articles of 
 commerce and a tax on same. 
 
 To subject all articles of commerce to such inspec¬ 
 tion and taxation could only tend to the ruin of all 
 commerce. 
 
 These laws require the forced inspection of all 
 Hour and hay coming to and sold in the city of New 
 Orleans and impose a direct tax of two cents on 
 every barrel of Hour and ten cents on every bale 
 of hay. sold in the City of New Orleans. 
 
 j 
 
 751300 
 
4 
 
 Their practical operation and result have been and 
 are a direct tax on the commerce, trade and business 
 of the City of New Orleans, amounting annually to 
 a very large sum of money for which the public has 
 never received and can never receive the least benefit 
 
 To the extent of the taxes thus imposed, the com¬ 
 merce, trade and business of New Orleans are handi¬ 
 capped, defeated and prohibited. 
 
 Such laws interfere with, and oppose obstacles to 
 commercial business, and deprive the individual 
 citizen of his individual liberty, and freedom of ac¬ 
 tion, with regard to his own private property and 
 business affairs. 
 
 They are arbitrary, harsh, unnecesssary restric¬ 
 tions, and a heavy, grievous and oppressive burden 
 on the commerce of New Orleans. 
 
 The useless farce of present forced inspection of 
 flour can be easily realized from the notorious fact, 
 well known to the flour trade, that all traces of 
 such inspection very quickly disappear after the 
 flour has been inspected, whereby any benefit to the 
 final buyer or actual consumer of the flour is ren¬ 
 dered impossible. 
 
 Flour in the New Orleans market is not sold by 
 means, or on the faith of any inspection, but solely 
 on the faith, guarantee and responsibility of the 
 seller, like as in the case of all other merchandise. 
 
 Flour, when offered for sale, like all other mer¬ 
 chandise, by force of law, must be sound and mer¬ 
 chantable. Existing laws provide ample remedies 
 
5 
 
 for the fullest redress of any injury resulting from 
 fraud or any other illegal act of the seller. 
 
 The extreme hardship of such laws is clearly 
 shown by the case of a merchant of New Orleans in 
 the sale of Hour. A New Orleans flour merchant 
 annually is compelled by law to pay besides other 
 taxes, liberal State and City license taxes, for the 
 privilege and permission of selling flour. 
 
 In addition to such license taxes he is also by the 
 flour inspection law compelled to pay to the State 
 Flour Inspectors monthly tax hills for the tax on 
 flour sold by him, amounting to twenty-live, fifty, 
 one hundred, or more dollars per month, according 
 to the quantity of flour sold. To the extent the 
 merchant pays such tax on the flour sold by him, to 
 same extent must the profits of the sale of such 
 flour only decrease. 
 
 The merchant, his employees and all parties in¬ 
 terested in the flour trade thereby naturally can only 
 suffer. Such grievous taxes on the flour trade of 
 New Orleans are such a heavy burden as to render 
 the flour business unprofitable. 
 
 The harder the struggle of the merchant for suc¬ 
 cessful business results, the greater the discourage¬ 
 ment from such a constantly increasing amount of 
 flour inspection taxation. These inspection laws 
 are claimed to be derived from the police power of 
 the State which can be, and always is presumed to 
 be exercised, only, for the public* good—for the pro¬ 
 tection of the public health. 
 
6 
 
 The flour and hay inspection laws truly render no 
 benefit to the public and no protection for the public 
 health. 
 
 Where no public benefit—no protection for the 
 public health is afforded, all reason for such laws 
 naturally fail. 
 
 The hay inspection law, influenced and created by 
 the same principle of evil of the flour inspection 
 law, is subject to the same objections opposed to the 
 latter law. The same considerations and reasons 
 which reject the flour inspection law, also reject the 
 hay inspection law. 
 
 In the case of the hay inspection law, it has been 
 claimed that the tax or charge on hay lias been 
 reduced and now only covers a moderate compen¬ 
 sation for the weighing of the hay. 
 
 Such claim, however true, can not justify the 
 gross injustice of the absolute denial of the right of 
 the owner of the liay to weigh his own hay himself, 
 or to have it weighed for one-fourth of the cost of 
 the charge fixed by law. 
 
 A chief characteristic feature, common to both of 
 these inspection laws, is that they apply to and are 
 confined only to one particular locality of the whole 
 State of Louisiana and — only to the City of New 
 Orleans, the entire remainder of the State being re¬ 
 lieved of their onerous provisions. 
 
 All of the people of the entire State of Louisiana 
 outside of the City of New Orleans, therefore, re¬ 
 quire no forced inspection of flour and hay, and, 
 
thereby evidence most emphatically the truth of the 
 fact that such inspection laws are a useless farce 
 fraught only with evil, what is also further confirmed 
 by the fact that throughout the United States there 
 cannot be found another city, afflicted in the same 
 manner as New Orleans has been and is. 
 
 The taxation resulting from these laws is thus 
 shown to be most unequal and unjust and clearly in 
 violation of constitutional law. 
 
 The offices created by these inspection laws are, 
 truly and substantially, pure, naked political sine¬ 
 cures, intended and designed originally solely as a 
 reward to political partisans for polical partisan 
 services. These inspection laws, more appropriately, 
 could be called and termed laws for the forced 
 charity wrung from a victimized public and for the 
 reason that the revenues collected under these laws 
 are not paid into the public treasury, but simply 
 provide an easy support and a comforatble living for 
 the incumbents of the offices established by these 
 laws. These State Boards of Inspection in the past, 
 as political institutions, have been infamous political 
 abuses, and have been used, most shamefully, for the 
 severe oppression and great injury of the commerce, 
 trade and business of New Orleans. 
 
 These laws and the offices created and maintained 
 by them, are relics of the corrupt reign of the period 
 of reconstruction, and remain still in force, for the 
 reason that until now they have accidentally escaped 
 all chances for honest judicial or legislative test of 
 their merits and validity. 
 
The subject of flour and hay inspection is justly 
 and legitimately a business subject and as such 
 should be viewed and treated. 
 
 Hie New Orleans Produce Exchange, a commer¬ 
 cial corporation under the laws of the State of 
 Louisiana, composed of, and representing a large 
 number of the most intelligent merchants of the 
 commercial community of New Orleans, are chiefly 
 and most directly interested in this subject of flour 
 and hay inspection. Such body of intelligent mer¬ 
 chants are amply competent to deal with this legiti¬ 
 mate business subject, which should be lett entirely 
 to them for their action, and the adoption of such 
 necessary measures, rules and regulations as may be 
 required by the demands and wants of the trade in¬ 
 terested. Every principle of equity, justice and law 
 condemn such infamous laws, and every one inter¬ 
 ested in the general welfare of the Citv of New 
 Orleans and State of Louisiana, can only demand 
 their total, absolute repeal, whereby much will be 
 accomplished for the eradication of a principle of 
 endless evil, which in the past has done much harm, 
 and in the future can only do more harm. 
 
 For some twenty years past the commercial com¬ 
 munity of New Orleans have been struggling for 
 relief from such and many other political abuses and 
 it is hoped that some relief will now be obtainable. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 i> 
 
 HIDDEOK E.