The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-08-14

Quite as palpable trick as was the
Inclusion of anthracite coal, never be-
fore made dutiable, by raising the car
bon percentage from IS to 90, was the
insertion, also in conference Of the
provision Incorporated in the ancient
provision, common to all tariff acts, tax
ing 10per cent additionally all goods i'm
ported in vessels not of American reg
tster. unless treaty provisions exempted
foreign vessels from such tax. AS all
our foreign treaties with commercial
countries contain just such a provision,
the law has always peen futile for
revenue purposes. When the bill came
out of conference it had in it's midst
the provision that this 10 per cent tax
should apply to all goods which being
the production or manufacture of any
foreign country not contiguous to the
United States, shall come into the
United States from such contiguous
country" unless imported Gin the US
ual course of strictly retail trade" I'M
porting jobbers and wholesalers in the
cities of the Northwest will find that
this change will very seriously affect
them if the treasury's law officers shall
give 1t the construction intended by
the interests that framed it and sur
reptitiously secured its insertion in the
bill
What those interests have been in the
past we of the Northwest have been
made familiar. What they are now we
are to learn, and this is our first les-
son. They are the same that have
tried in every way to prevent the mer-
chants of the Northwest from enjoy
ing the benefit of the competition of
the $780," with its Canadian Pacific
connections, on freight rates from the
East. That road has acted as q gov
ernor; first reducing rates and then
preventing rise. We have had efforts
TO have abolished the transit through
Canada of foreign imports in bond. so
as to compel their shipment by the
trunk lines by way of Chicago. As
long as that and similar efforts to the
same end were made in the open thew
were successfully combatted; but no
vigilance could detect this job. done in
the secrecy of a conference committee
and its results hidden away in the
middle Of a section so old as to be ac-
cepted as perfunctory and immaterial.
What it will mean to us in the future
is even more important. Not TO orr
merchants alone, but to the great eri-
cultural interests of the Northwest
also. One Of the more recent and i'm
portant developments Of commerce r.
Us is this growing trade with the
Orient. We are receiving in ever in.
creasing quantity the products of Chi
ma, Japan and Australia, and thew are
taking in charging quantity not on1v
our manufactures but our wheat and
flour. Instead OF one subsidized steam
snip line carrying freight between this
and the continent across the Pacific
there are two or three, none Of Amer
lean register. Commerce moves on the
lines of least resistance, and those are
the lines of lowest cost Of transnort
A large portion Of these imports have
come in at Vancouver and thence East
over the Canadian Pacific, because it's
rates were the lowest 1t is to prevent
this and to defect the freights to the
other Pacific roads that this alteration
was surreptitiously injected into that
section. It is to make all such imports
pay an additional duty of 10 per cent
al valorem unless they are entered in
an American port. That means an in
crease in price, resulting either from
this additional tax or from the increa SO
of rates that will follow. 1t will mean
decrease Of our imports from those
countries followed by a decrease in orr
exports of produce, mainly wheat and
flour, thus injuring an opening and
promising market
There is no doubt that this change
was surreptitiously made. Chairman
Dingley. il reporting the bill to the