Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1890 — MR. OWEN’S TARIFF IDEAS. [ARTICLE]

MR. OWEN’S TARIFF IDEAS.

He will offer several Amendments to the McKinley Bill. Special to the Indianapolis Journal. Washington, May 18.—Representative Owen, of Indiana, intends to offer some very important amendments to the McKinley tariff bill. One of them will strike out all of the proposed reduction of the revenue on tobacco except the proposed abolition of the license for retailers. Another will put lumber and salt upon the free list. Still another amendment will empower the Secretary of the Treasury to revoke the tariff on any article upon which a trust or monopoly is formed at any time, thus making it possible to prevent an unfair rise in the prices of artieles of every-day consumption. Mr. Owen says that this may be giving large power to the Secretary of the Treasury, but he does not see how it is possible to prevent monopolies and “bull” movements of the market unless we place confidence and power in the hands of our officials, as the conditions are continually changing, and if any article should be specified in a bill, or any circumstance described-by which the law would prohibit a “corner,” or a monopoly, or a trust, it would be easy, as experience has taught, to change the conditions and avert the operations of the law.* Public sentiment and careful scrutiny, he thinks, would always prevent the improper exercise of this discretionary power of any officer of the government.