Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1894-08-30
ERRORS in THE BILL.
MANY MISTAKES DISCOVERED
~ THE TARIFF BILL.
No Appropriation to Put the Income Tax
Into oEnect-Treasury Asked for s6O0,OOo
Diamonds Unintentionally Placed on
the Free List.
Big Tariff Blunders.


In addition to the long list Of errors
found in the German tariff bill, the
surprising discovery has been made by
the Treasury Department officials that
no appropriation has been made for
putting into effect the income tax pro-
visions. The collectors of internal
revenue can do nothing under these
circumstances in the direction OF pre-
pairing to collect the tax. The treas
ury officials claim to be blameless, for
they forwarded to the Appropriations
Committee more than a month ago an
estimate for an initial appropriation OF
$500, 900 to be used during the current
fiscal year in carrying out the income
tax provisions of the tariff bill IL it
should become a law The omission
cannot be rectified at this session OF
Congress.
Scattered over twenty-one different
pages of the new tariff bill there have
teen discovered so far a total of thirty
one errors, the greater part of which
have no eject on the bill. There
are three serious errors, though, not
counting the section that authorizes
the payment of rebate on the tax
paid on alcohol used in the arts and
sciences. None of the errors can be
corrected without q joint resolution OF
the two HOSES, for the "law" print of
the bill must be an exact copy, word
ing and spelling, punctuation, and
everything else contained in the en-
rolled bill, which is the copy that be-
comes part of the archives of the gov
ernment.
BY the omiss on of comma the
Senate has lifted bodily from the free
list the products OF coal tar, not colors
ordyes. Among the pi o lucts OF coal tar
the more important are dead oil, pitch,
and benzole. These shou d have come
inlfree, but by the omission Of the
comma they are all transferred to the
dutiable list Another error is one
over which there has been some dis
pute, but according TO tariff experts it
operates to put diamonds in the free
list. The use of the semicolon in
stead of the colon is used by ex-
perts to indicate that diamonds
themselves, as a class, not set. in
addition to those tor use in certain
trades, as was intended, are admitted
free. 1t is aid that some of the larg-
est importers Of precious stones in
New York, aware of this error, have
ordered large invoices of diamonds be-
fore the error can te corrected. Para
graph "a of the chemical schedule
makes sulphate of magnesia, or epson
salts, dutiable at 1.5 OF cent pound.
This was an item added by the Senate
which omitted to strike from the free
list paragraph 542, which reads: Mag
nesia, sulphate OF, or epson salts.
The two paragraphs are in opposition.
Costly Errors of the Past.
some years ago 1t was shown that the
insertion of a comma instead of
hyphen in tariff bill cost the govern
ment almost $5OO,OO0. The tariff act
of JuLe q, 1872, contained in the free
list a paragraph reading: "Fruit,
plant !, tropical and semi-tropical, for
the purpose OF propagation or cultiva-
tion." instead of the comma after the
word "fruit" there should have been q
hyphen, the article intended to be ad-
mitted free being fruit-plants. The
error was corrected by a joint resolu-
tion on May 8, 1874, but up to that time
hundreds OF thousands of dollars worth
OF tropical fruits were brought in alb
solutely free OF duty.
A serious error in the Mckinley act
was corrected in like manner, the mis-
take being the displacement OF pa
renthesis. The paragraph as 1t ap-
peared in the law read: Gables, cord
age, and twine lex, ept binding twine
composed in whole or in part Of istle,
or Tampico fiber si.al grass, or sum-
IL cents per pound" The only rde
that should have been inclosed in pa
rentheses were except binding twine,"
which made very material change in
the construction of the paragraph.
The correction was made Feb. IL, 1891,
the law, however, having been in force
since Oct l. 1890