Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1912 — TARIFF BOARD VALUE [ARTICLE]

TARIFF BOARD VALUE

COUNTRY SOMEWHAT SKEPTICAL ON THE SUBJECT. '• Report on Wool Schedule Doe* Nbt Seem to Be of Much Practical Use—One Thing at Lea* the People Know. The house of representatives decided to order the publication of the tariff board’ report on the wool schedule. Perhaps a careful study of it may prove that it is as valuable as the president believes it to be. But there is a good deal of skepticism on the subject. One thing seerds to be pretty well established, and that is that the board did not get any important Information as to the differing costs of production of Wool and woolens. Indeed, it is admitted that it was impossible “to state in exact terms the cost of producing a pound of wool by itself, for the simple reason that wool is but one of two products of the Same operation.” So even the domestic price of producing wool can not be stated in “exact terms.”' However, the board, In some way, managed to discover that In the west the cost is at least 11 cents a pound. As It admits that the cost is higher in Ohio than anywhere else, it is hard to .see how, with the high Ohio cost, and with wool costing 11 cents in the sections w'here production is cheapest, the board managed to strike an average of 9Vz cents for the entire country. In truth it all looks like guesswork. Obviously if the difficulties were so great at home they must have been much more formidable ' abroad. The cost of production in South America is, we are informed, between 4 and 5 cents a pound. No authori'ty in support of this conclusion has thus far been gi*ven, nor have we any light on the process used in reaching it. In regard to the cost in Australia the board is most indefinite. “It appears,” we are told, “that .a charge of a very few cents a pound lies against the great clips of region in the aggregate.” Again the board is unable to “name an exact figure.” Of course, all this must be very discouraging to those who insist that the measure of protection should be the difference between the foreign and domestic costs of production. Only, so it is said, as we observe this principle can we hope to get a “scientific” tariff. Yet we now see that this difference can not be established with anything even approaching scientific exactness. It is all guesswork, and, thereforerit is through guesswork that we are to work out our scientific tariff. We have no exact figures in regard to production in this country, in South America or in Australasia, and yet it is expected that congress will from this report discover what the differing* costs of production are, and then legislate “scientifiically" in the light of that knowledge. The truth, of course, is that the whole theory is impossible and fallacious. Wb have seen how difficult it was for the haard to apply it, and how complete wasTnts failure to get accurately the facts which are supposed' to be necessary to the construction of a proper tariff. It is said that the ways and means committee will question the members of the board as to the authorities on which it relied and the methods which it used. One thing, at least, know, and that is that schedule is about as bad as it could be —is, as the president once said, “indefensible.”—lndianapolis News.