Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1912 — “JOKERS” HID REVISION UP [ARTICLE]

“JOKERS” HID REVISION UP

Actual Raising of Duties Effected by Payne Bill J COTTON AND WOOL SCHEDULE Both Indefensible, and President Taft Knew It—Suppression of Facts by the Tariff Board—Statistics Employed to Mislead the Public. By ROBERT KEIMNETH MACLEA. [Formerly consulting expert of the tariff board.] New York, Aug.—On not a single one of the ninety-five all cotton samples of fabric taken as the basis of the tariff board’s investigations of the cotton schedule was there an actual reduction of the tariff by the PayneAldrich law. The samples were selected with great care by the combined judgment of the board’s experts, Indorsed by the leading jobbers of the United States as being representative of all classes of fabric in use in this country, each sample being chosen because it was typical of the most used material of Its particular weave or class. Ninetyfive all cotton and five silk and cotton samples comprise the 100 thht appear in the tariff board’s cotton report. Forty-seven of the ninety-five in the all cotton class pay 33.60 per cent higher duties under the Payne-Al-drich than they did under the Dingley tariff.

Payne-Aldrlch “Jokers.” Of these forty-seven classe of material on which the tariff was Increased nine are the fancy weaves made in three or four New England mills commonly grouped as the “LlppittMcColl Interests.” This Is the clique of New England manufacturer-politi-cians who were permitted by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich to write the cotton schedule to; suit themselves. Of the nine Lippitt-McColl fabrics the Payne-Aldrlch law jacked up the average duty from 36.57 to 60.33 per cent. In other words, the promised “revision downward” on these goods was really a revision upward amounting to 64.97 per cent of the Dingley rates. The remaining thirty-eight classes of all cotton fabrics on which the duty was increased were not generally the product of the favored New England ring. Under the Dingley law these thirty-eight fabrics were assessed an average duty of 35.36 per cent. Undfer the Payne-Aldrlch law they pay 44.58 per cent. —a revision upward equal to 26.07 per cent, of the former rate as compared with 64.97 per cent, increase on the manufactures of the favored few.

On just three among the 100 samples was there a decrease In duty. These were the silk and cotton fabrics (silk mills) that pay more than 100 per cent.

duty. On these three samples the reduction averaged 5.66 per cent on the former duty—a reduction from 116.70 per cent under the Dingley law to 110.44 per cent under the Payne-Al-drlch law. On one of the silk and cotton samples there was an increase amounting to 21.98 per cent. The fifth of the silk and cotton samples was left unchanged. On the forty-five of the ninety-five all cotton samples there was no change in duty. On the three remaining samples (completing the total of 100) no comparison is made because of apparent lack of authentic foreign prices. Mr. Taft Was Mistaken. And still President Taft said in his speech at Boston, April 25 last: “It (the Payne-Aldrich bill) was a" vastly better bill than the Dingley bill. If I had refused to sign the Payne bill it would have maintained the Dingley bill with higher rates than the Payne bill.”

When Mr. Taft made this statement he must have known that it was untrue. As for the wool schedule, he knew that the rates were not higher in the Dingley law than in the PayneAldrich law, for right after signing the latter bill did he not denounce its wool rates as “indefensible?” And, as for the cotton rates of the Payne bill, he knew they were just as “indefensible” as the wool rates, for at the time he made this statement in Boston he had the tariff board’s report on cotton before him.

It is true that the cotton report of the tariff board did not make this information available at a glance to Mr. Taft or to congress or to the public. The tariff board carefully avoided giving this information in a getatable, understandable form. Suppressed the Answer.

“Was the tariff raised or lowered?” has been an insistent question ever since the Payne-Aldrich law was enacted three years ago. The tariff board avoided answering it. In making my official report to the board I submitted a table that did answer this question in respect to each one, excepting three, of the 100 cloth samples around which our months of Investigation centered. After much sidestepping and discussion this table was expurgated and published in its emasculated form. The board’s excuse was that It was not its duty to answer the question; congress could make its own computations. Benefit Only to Privilege. From every point of view of the tariff grafter it is no doubt highly desirable that such facts, staggering as they are to the dishonest pretensions that the cotton tariff was really lowered, should be buried as deeply as possible in a mass of unexplained statistics. But it is to the advantage of every honest manufacturer and merchant who is seeking stability in business and fair opportunity to make a reasonable profit that the truth should be made known. Just such policies of official evasion and suppression have made possible in the past the juggling of tariff legislation by and in behalf of the privileged few. —New York World.