Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1889 — THE TARIFF BILL. [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF BILL.

Changes in the Lumber Schedule - Possible Action of Protection Democrats. Republican members of the Senate committee on finance, who have been in conference upon the tariff bill for several days, have reached a conclusion on several of the most important points in controversy, but have several others still to be settled. The duty on dressed lumber, which is now $2 a thousand feet, w ill undoubtedly be fixed at $1.25. Mr. Allison, representing his own views, which are shared by all the Senators from the prairie States, has been trying to secure a reduction to $1 a thousand feet, and the Senators from the lumber States —Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin —have been willing to concede 50 cents, but it has now been agreed to split the difference and make the duty $1.25, which is a reduction of 75 cents a thousand. The Senators from the agricultural States in the West, where the beet and sorghum sugar industry is becoming one of importance, have been induced to agree to a reduction of the duty.on sugar, provided a bounty of 1 cent a pound is paid upon all sugar, whether from cane, beet or sorghum, produced in the United States.

The duty on barbed wife will not be reduced, although a strong effort has been made by the representatives of the prairie States to secure it. The duty on structural iron, which is now T lr7 cents a pound, will be reduced to 8 or 9 mills a podnd, and the duty on, steel nails will be fixed at sl4 a ton. The protection Democrats in the House will oppose the reference of the Senate su stitute for the Mills bill to the Committee on Ways and Means when it reaches the House. Representative Sowden said, Wednesday, that when the substitute is delivered to the House, and made a motion to refer it to the Committee on Ways and Means, about twenty Democrats would jump up and object, demanding that it be referred to the Committee of the Whole for consideration. If this can be done, the bill will have an excellent chance to pass the House, and it can be done if there are twenty Democrats, as Sowden claims, who will vote with the Republicans to consider the bill without reference to the Committee on Ways and Means.