The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1897-03-19
THE NEW "'ARIFF BILL
CHAIRMAN DINGLEY HAS
IT COMPLETED.
Hopes OF Canadians for Having Their
Farm Products Admitted FREQ VIII
he Biastcd-The Wool Schedule Prov
Ing Very Troublesome,

WASHINGTON, March 13.-Chairman
Dingley of the House ways and means
committee says that the new tariff
bill will be ready to be introduced in
the House Monday. The administra-
tive features have not yet been draft
ed, nor has the reciprocity scheme,
although the features of it are decided
upon These may be presented as
committee amendments after the bill
gets before the House. The earth
enware schedule is not yet per-
fected. The same difficulties have
been met with in adjusting the
rates on earthenware that were in
volved in wooden good :, the attempt to
carry into effect the Republican policy
of replacing ad valorem duties with
SPECIFIC. IL has been found almost i'm
possible TO determine upon standards
by which specific rates can be levied
on china and pottery goods, the fac
tors of decoration, weight and pro-
cesses of manufacture entering so
largely into the value of these goods,
and it is quite probable that they will
be placed under the Mckinley schedule
with some iinmaterial changes.
The reciprocity principle which will
be embodied in the bill will be that of
lower duties on certain classes goods
in return for concessions to certain
lines of American goods. The principal
lines of goods on which duties may be-
lowered by reciprocity treaties will be
sugar champagnes, silks, gloves min
eral waters, chiclSle (much of which is
imported for chewing gum and argyll,
or crude tartar, which is one OF the
chief constituents of baking powders
The president will be empowered by
the bill to enter into treaties by which
the duties will be materially lowered
on importations of these goods from
countries which make concessions to
American cattle and other products.
There will be no reciprocity which in
wolves placing any important class of
imports on the free list, or any author
ity given the executive to raise duties
against imports from countries which
refuse to enter into reciprocity treaties.
The reduction in the duty on sugar
by reciprocity will be 4 of cent IL
pound. so that sugar coming from the
countries which make reciprocity
treaties with the United States will be
entered at | = cents pound. While
the reduction seems small, difference
of 1915 cents per 100 pounds is Il ma
tcr;al one to sugar importers.
Most of the goods in the list given
above which are imported into the
United States come from Germany and
France, and it is the expectation of
the committee that reciprocity on
champagne, silks and gloves will prove
an inducement to these countries to
abandon their policy of discrimination
against American beef and pork.
The hopes of the new Canadian ad-
minstration for closer reciprocal rela-
tions will be defeated by the Dingley
bill. The Liberal party, under Laur-
ier's leadership. has made closer com
inercial affiliations with the United
States one of its foremost policies, and
one of the first acts of the administra-
tion was to send Cartwright and Davies
to Washington as commissioners to
pave the way for reciprocity. Their mis-
sion has proved IL fruitless one, because
they desired to open the markets of
this country to the farm products of
Canada. In their interviews with
Chairman Dingley and other members
of the committee they were told, in
diplomatic terms, but emphatically,
that the design of the new tariff bill
would he TO preserve the markets of
the United States by adequate pro-
tective duties on all farm products
Representatives of the manufactur
ing interests profess to be dissatisfied
with the readoption of the Mckinley
rates of woods, basing their complaint
on the ground that the prices of woods
are much lower than they were when
the Mckinley law was enacted but
the members of the committee think
the point is not well taken.