The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-11-29
THE SOUTH BEHIND IT.
EX-Speaker Reed Talks Of the New
Tariff Bill.
THE UNFAIRNESS SHOWN In ITS
PREPARATION.

southern Men Controlled the Committee
and Southern Interests Are Tenderly
Cared For-The Unwise Change from
Specific to Ad Valorem Duties--How
New England Mills Are Likely To Be
Affected-Other Comment
New York, November 2S.-A Washing
ton despatch to the New York Herald
says:
Ex-Speaker Reed, one of the minority
members of the ways and means COM
mittee, when asked for his views on the
proposed new tariff tonight, said:
"Of course it is very easy for the gen.
tlemen who prepared this bill to present
their views, since they have been busily
engaged in the work for number of
weeks, while the first sight that the mi
nority had of the bill was at II o'clock
today.
Like any other tariff bill which cov-
ers so many different objects and takes
up so much space, all any one could do
who has seen it is to make some obvious
comments on certain portions of it.
In the first place, the country ought
to understand that there has been a GER
tain degree of unfairness about the prep
aration of this bill; unfairness to the
country rather than to individuals, aris-
ing from the composition of the com
nlittee. The Democracy have taken the
lions share of the committee, and they
have done this for purpose, for while
the Northern Democrats are represented
upon the committee, they are represent
ed in such way that the South holds a
strange and very unfortunate predomi-
nance.
''As their industrial status is very diff
ferent from the average of the whole
country, 1T necessarily follows, and abso-
lutely in fact has followed, that the bill
is about as bad as could be reasonably
imagined. This may not be true with
regard to every item, but it is certainly
true with regard to the most important
matters in the bill.
In the first place, one of the most
striking things to be objected to is the
frequent, unnecessary changes from spe-
clfic duties to ad yalorem duties. Proba-
bly, any one who has actual business in
the United States knows that even if the
ad valorem duties were calculated upon
the same basis as specific duties, in ac-
tual practice, owingto the way in which
under-valuations and appraisements are
made it would be a reduction of at least
10 per cent of the tariff ON this basis.
I'm the very important schedules, the
effect of the change from specific to ad
valorem duty will be quite apparent. In
the cotton schedules, specific rates have
been retained, undoubtedly because the
South was more or less interested in cot
ton manufactures, and the desire to pro-
tect their own local interests has caused
them to adopt the system which they
have rejected elsewhere, to the disadvan-
tage of their neighbors.
5 In the cotton schedule, the lowering
of rates on fine goods is likely to work
much disaster to mills that are engaged
in the production of such work, and also
in cotton yarn mills. In the wooden
schedule, rates are not only too low gen
orally, but they are so uneven in their
reduction that the lowering of wages
will not by any possibility save some in
dustries, so that the workingmen in
some parts of this industry will not
have the comparative good fortune to on
ly have their wages reduced, but are
quite likely to lose them altogether. This
is true to some extent, as it seems, in the
cotton schedule.
Goal has been placed upon the free
list for the advantage of the Nova Scotia
mines, which have been purchased by
gentlemen who have been interested in
the tariff, and West Virginia is likely
thereby, according to the Democratic
governor of the state, to suffer irrepara-
BILE damage and be arrested in it's devel-
opment. Iron ore is quite free, which
will cause a lowering of wages in the
iron mines and will repress the extern
sion of the fields of effort which had al
ready got to be very large and which
were tending to the reduction of prices.
New England seems to have been
severely treated in many ways. Our
fishermen on the coast Of Maine have
been especially considered to their very
great disadvantage in putting fresh fish
on the free list without even the saving
clause immediate consumption In
asmuch as a great deal of fish is BROUGHT
in on ice, this practically opens our fresh
flsh market to the Canadians, who have
obtained, without the disadvantages of
a treaty, all that the former administra-
tion OF President Cleveland tried to give
them by the rejected treaty.
Among other things that are admitted
free is building stone, and cut stone is
only.20 per cent ad valorem ;s.that is, the
labor on building stone is only balanced
Uypd ollnplC uuty ol SUsper cent, While it
is to be hoped that this country will
wait long before it sees proportionate
decrease of the wages of the working
man engaged in that occupation.
"There are also many little devices
throughout the bill for the purpose Of
achieving practical free trade Indirectly.
like that which declares that all articles
for thesuse of the United States shall be
free While to the superficial observer
it seems of very little consequences
whether the government under one de-
partment pays money into the other
for duties on its imports or takes them
without duties, in actual practice this
system will bring the doers of govern
ment work in this country into direct
competition with the foreign producers
without the slightest shred of protection
for labor or for capital.
aThis will tend to make foreign
manufacturers the sole bidders for gov
ernment supplies.
1These are but few examples of the
language and character of the bill which
is nresented for the consideration of the
neople. 1t is only possible for one who
fs only member of the minority on the
committee to speak in general terms on
the subject, but when the bill gets
abroad and those who are interested
bring to bear upon it their peculiar