Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1890 — THE TARIFF BILL. [ARTICLE]

THE TARIFF BILL.

The Conference Committee Agrees and the Bill Is Reported. The Conference Committee came to an agreement bn the 26th, and the bill was at once reported to the House by Mr. McKinThe new law is to go into effect Oct. 6, 1890. The Senate reciprocity feature is preservedin the bill, but the date for it to go into effect has been changed from July 1, 1891, to January 1, 1892. The duty on binding twine of all kinds is put at 7-10 cent per pound, and the provision for this article is made to apply to binding twine made in part from istle or Tampico fiber, manilla, sisal or sunn. The sugar schedule provides that all sugars not above No. 16 Dutch standard, all tank bottom, all sugar drainings and sugar sweepings, syrups of cane juice, melada, concentrated meladaand concentrated molasses and molasses shall be placed on the free list. This is the House provision, subject, however,to the restrictions of the reciprocity feature, which empowers the President to suspend the free ad mission of sugar, molasses, coffee, tea and hides, under certain conditions. In the internal revenue features of the bill nearly all the House provisions of the bill are restored. The provision removing all restrictions on farmers and growers of tobacco in regard to the sale of leaf-tobac co are restored and a proviso added that the farmer shall furnish, on demand of any internal revenue officer, a statement of his sales, etc. A fine of SSOO is provided for violation of this provision. The conference committee struck out the Senate amendments providing for a tariff commission. . . —— The tax on smoking and manufactured tobacco and on snuff is placed, at 6 cents per pound. Opium mamifacturers are taxed $lO per pound upon opium manufactured in the United States for smoking purposes, and only persons who are citizens of the United States are permitted to engage in its manufacture.

In the free list a numb'”' of changes, most of them of no materia in erest, were made. Raw and unmanufactured bristles were stricken from the free list in conference. The House provision placing on the free list American-caught fish except salmon caught by American vessels, etc., is reinsert ed. The Senate provision concerning pure mineral waters is allowed to remain. The paragraph covering ores of gold, silver and nickel and nickel matter is retained, with a proviso that the duty on the copper contained in them shall be one-hali cent per pound. Among the other Senate amendments that were agreed to by the conference committee are those covering plaster of Paris and sulphate of lime, unground potashes, seeds and sulphuric acids not over 1.380 specific gravity. The conference amended a number ol the free list provisions, inserting in the bill paragraphs providing for the free ad mission of feathers and downs for beds, peltries and other usual goods of Indians passing the boundary line of the United States, tin ore cassitite and tin in bars, blocks, pigs or granulated, until July 1, 1893. and thereafter, as otherwise provid edfor; works of art by American artists residing temporarily abroad. • The sugar schedule is amended so as to grant a bounty of 1% cent per pound on sugar testing between 80 and 90 degrees polariscope test, and 2 cents on sugar test ing not less than 90 degrees, from July 1, 1891, to July 1,1905. The bill, as passed by the House and Senate, granted a bounty of 2 cents a pound to sugar testing 80 degrees and over. The conterrees agreed to the Senate amendments extending the bounty tc maple sugar and providing that no bounty be paid on less than five hundred pounds. Sugar above No. 16 Dutch standard is tc pay five-tenths of a cent a pound, and onetenth of a cent additional'if the country exporting or producing it charges export duty. Machinery for the manufacture ol beetsugar istobe admitted free until July 1,1892, and any duty collected on chinery imported since January 1, 18£Q, ’shall be refunded. Glucose is retained at the House rate —three-fourths of a cent pet pound. " ’ The sugar schedule is made to take effect on April 1,1891, wit|i a proviso that the month of March sugars may be refined in bond*without the paymeht'of duty, and 1 transported in bond and sold’ in bonded warehouses under the prov>'cns of exist ing laws. .