Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 284, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1914 — MORE IMPORTS AND MUCH LESS REVENUE [ARTICLE]

MORE IMPORTS AND MUCH LESS REVENUE

War Tax Not Due to War But to Fact That Foreign Goods Enter Our Ports Free.

Washington, Dec. 2.—Charges that the war tax bill was unnecessary and that any deficit in revenue was not due to the war, but to the passage of the Underwood tariff bill practically have been verified in a report issued by Secretary Redfield, of the department of commerce.

The report shows that the imports for the United States for the ten months ending October 31, of his year, were more than $88,000,000 greater than for the same ten months of the preceding year, when there was no war.

The imports for the ten months ending October of this year were $1,548,531,394, compared with a total of $1,460,334,373 for the same period last year. For the month of October, this year, the imports were $138,080,530, compared with a total for the same month last year of $132,949,302, an increase for October this year of more than $5,000,000. These figures,, which, of course, are official, are regarded as a striking indictment of the efficacy of the Underwood tariff bill, the more so, because they are given out by a member of President Wilson’s cabinet

These figures, it was contended, prove conclusively that the cry of the democrats that the loss in revenue to this country was directly due to the war ejntirely were unfounded, and that - a lot of explaining will have to be done by democratic statesmen to prove or try to prove that anything outside of the administration’s new tariff bill was responsible for the slump. It was also declared that a tot of explaining also will be necessary to prove that in the face of increasing exports to this country the necessity of a war tax bill was apparent. The Underwood tariff bill went into effect on October 4 last year. The war has,-had a disastrous effect on our exports, however, for, according to the report for the 10 months ended with Oeober, they were more than $342,000,000 less than for the same period last year. Exports were more than $76,000,000 less in October this year, compared with October last year.