The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-05-22
plNGLEY,S STATEMENT.
Chairman of Ways and Means Conn
mittce ON Senate Amendments.

|
The first statement which Chairman
Dngley. of the ways and means com
mittee, whose name is borne by the new
tariff bill, has consented to make re-
earding the bill since it was amended
by the senate finance committee, was
made by him on Tuesday, May IL. Mr..
| Dingley was requested to give some
statement rs to the probable additional
revenue that would he yielded the first
year by the senate tariff bill. as well as
10y the house bill, and he spoke as fol-
| lows:
at must be borne in mind that there is
| no senate bill as yet What Is improper
| IN spoken of as the senate hill Is the honsa
| biil reported to the senate by the hnance
| committees. with certain amendments rec
| commended What the senate bull VIII
| be when that body shall have made 1t no one
! can as We, say, While the amendments OF
| the house Mill, recommended by the sem
| ate france committee about 700, appear 20
| be multituainous, yet about 200 or them are
| mainly verbal such as amending the SPELL
| ing of "asbestus' by substituting o for II,
| leaving about 500 which change rates. This
| is about the number of amendments to the
Mckinley bill adopted by the senate in 1880,
ana to these remaining 500 large pro-
portion involves nothing of consequence,
There are, however. many amendments
which are important not only on revenue.
but other grounds. / do not propose now
TO speak of these proposed amendments
except as they affect revenue.
"Tle effect of these amendments as
whole, outside Of the amendment imposing
a duty on tea for two years and half.
ana the amendment increasing the inter
nal revenue tax on beer A cents per bar
20, H. mn arin nd he
proposed on tobacco and cigarettes, is to
produce less revenue than would be yielded
by the house bill For example, the amend
ments returning to the free list argols.
certain acids and oils. painting and stat
nary for private use, and reducing the
duties on liquors, tobacco, precious stones.
etc. lose more revenue than could be OBJ
tained by the duty on tea. Amendments
reducing the duty on clothing wool and
increasing the duty on carpet wool would
also diminish the revenue. The amend
ment increasing the duty on opium from
six dollars to eight dollars per pound
would not increase the revenue. in the
judgment of the administrators OF the
law. who Informed the ways and means
committee that six dollars was the point
which would yield the largest revenue.
The proposed duty on hides and few other
amendments would increase the duty
somewhat.
"Of course the estimate of an increased
revenue from sugar, through an abrogation
of the treaty with Hawaii, has nothing to
DO with tariff legislation. for this could be
done by action OF the house sugar sched-
ulc as the sugar schedule proposed. The
ways ana means committee did not even
consider the question of ahrogating this
treaty, because they took II for granted
that il IL was considered desira bic to ah-
rocatc this or any other treaty ii would be
done in the STRAIGHTFORWARD manner pro-
a (, Il 1, 4.
me senate finance committee recommends
an al valoren duty on sugar apparently
a little higher than the specific duty of the
house bill does not insure larger revenue,
as past experience with ad valorem du-
ties has shown. In our Judgment the rev.
enue from sugar under the house sugar
schedule Setting aside the question of abb
roaatng the Hawaiian treaty. would he
larger than under the senate amendments.
The proposed temporary duty on tea
would increase the revenue, although not
so much the first year as estimated, be-
cause OF the large stocks on hand and the
short stocks that would be maintained
with the knowledge that tea would soon
go back to the free list: and the proposed
increase of internal revenue taxes would
also increase the revenue to the extent es-
timatcd. But the other proposed amend
inehts would as a whole diminish rather
than increase the revenue
"Some criticism has been made on the
estimates of the ways and means commit
zee as 10 the revenue that would he pro-
luced by the tariff bill as IL passed the
house. These criticisms overlook the fact
that the ways and means committee es-
inmates OF the revenue that might be ex-
pected the first year were based on The
assumption that the bill should become a
law on or before May ]. The commit
tee IN their report expressly said that while |
mere would be no question that the house !
Dill would in any event yield sufficient rev. |
anue to carry on the government and |
leave surplus the second year of its OBJ |
eration-which nobody even now contra |
llcts-and probably sufficient for the first /
year, II II could be promptly put into force |
yet If there should be delay in its enact |
ment beyond May ], anticipatory importa-
tons would inevitably cause serious in
road IN the prospective revenues for the |
hrst year. Here is what the committee
said on this point:
What the actual revenue would prove |
10 be in the year following the enactment
of the proposed measure into law is, OF |
course, dependent upon contingencies |
which cannot be forecasted with any ap-
proach to certainty, and will therefore be- |
subject TO varying estimates Undoubted- |
~ the contingency which would ex- |
-rt the largest influence in dimin- |
shing the estimated revenues would |
pc delay in the passage OF the |
- NlS7NN I'M az consequence OIL whlcn |
here would be large importations of such |
articles as WOOL wooden goods, sugar, etc, |
pm which ii is proposed to increase the duty. |
IF the ways and means committee had |
supposed when they made this statement. |
Murch Is, that the bill would be DELAYED as
ong as now seems probable, they would |
have said that such delay would inevitably |
'esult in largely multiplying the revenue |
qualities of the bill the first year. through |
mportations of wool. sugar and other arti-
les before the new duty should go into |
force, unless such retroactive provision |
rs was placed in the bill by the house could |
De maintained. The anticipatory importa-
lions of such articles already arrived and |
IN their way exceed the fears Of the ways |
ana means committee when they urged |
PROMPT action by the house to prevent a |
oss of revenue for the first year"
IWhat the entire country is inter-
.sted in just now is the republican par
y. Can its leaders solve the great prob-