The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-03-09
M'K|NLEY AND THE
PORTO R|CAN BILL
He and the House Are OF
One Mind.
WOULD AID PORTO RICO
RECOGNIZES NO RIGHT OF HERS TO
FREE TRADE.
HOUSE BILL GIVES HIM WHAT He WANTS
As it Provides For Carrying Out His 'Libera
and Humane Policy" There is no Dis
cord Between the President and
Congress, it is Said.
(By The Associated Press.)

10y Inc -AoSOCldled I1t9o.J
Washington March S-A member of the
Cabinet tonight gave out the following
as the authoritative statement:
There has been a wide misapprehen-
sion of the Porto Rcan Tariff Bill, of
the attitude of the President, of the &C
ton of Congress and of their relations to
each other. The criticism and the con-
Germ which have come from some we'll
meaning quarters are due almost entirely
to misunderstanding of the real facts:
The attempt to represent that there
has been disagreement between the
President and Congress is wholly I'M
founded. There has been no essential
differences between them. Both have
sought the same object. The recommen-
dation of the President and the House
Bill in their purpose and their effect
come to the same thing. AS conse-
quence each rightly sustains the other
1.-THE President in his annual message
of December urged that the customs du-
ties on trade between Porto Rico and the
United States be removed. Imports from
Porto Rico into the United States have
been and are now paying the Dingley
rates. They have no preference over
goods from any foreign country. The
President felt that Porto Rico should be
relieved of this burden. He urged that
it should be removed not as a matter of
legal right, but of liberal and humane
policy.
What the President proposed was
that the United States should offer the
largest and most generous measure of
help to the distressed and suffering ISL
and and he has never wavered a single
instant in the object he sought. Had his
suggestion been accepted and followed by
all in his spirit and as he meant it, with
the limitations he intended all would
have been well. There would have been
no harm in any direction. But when the
time came for action in Congress two
tendencies were seen. On the one hand
there were good men and some business
and agricultural interests that while not
Directing or little Directing to free trade
with Porto Rico alone, feared that free
trade with Porto Rico would be made, i,
precedent for free trade with the Phillip
pines. They felt that there should be
a distinct assertion and exercise of the
power to impose duties, however small,
as an assurance that this power was
reserved for other cases.
ION the other hand what the Presi-
dent proposed as worthy act of ma
tional generosity and liberal policy was
seized by political opponents and claim
ed as a necessity and inevitable meas
ure of inherent constitutional right. They
insisted that the Constitution by its own
force extends to Porto Rico and all the
new island possessions and spreads all
it's provisions over them, including uni
form taxation. They were eager to COM
nit Republican Congress to the adop-
ton of free trade with Porto Rico, not
as a measure of generous expediency,
but because they could then claim that
it had riveted a hard and fast principle
which would tie the hands of the Gov
eminent everywhere, in the Philippines
as we'll as in Porto Rico.
cit was a cunning game, but it did
not succeed. The apprehension OF the
honest directors who feared that the con-
cesson of full free trade to Porto Rico
would lead to misconstruction and the
designs of the crafty partisans who
meant that it should, were both met
and frustrated by the bill which passed
the House and which levies 10 per cent
or less than one-sixth of the Dingley
rates.
''There was another point which was
not generally understood The bill pro-
yides that the whole amount OF duties
on goods coming from Porto Rico shall
be paid back tot Porto Rico for the bene-
fit of the island. Thus it fully harmonizes
with the object at which the President
aimed of relieving the trade OF Porto
Rico from burdensome restrictions and OF
extending the largest degree of help;
and when it was crowned by the Presi-
dents special message, promptly carried
out by the House, providing not only that
the duties hereafter collected, but that
those heretofore collected to the amount
of two million dollars, should be appro-
priated to be expended wholly in Porto
Rico for her development and improve
ment absolutely no ground was left for
any pretense that the policy OF the
President and Congress was in the
slightest degree harsh and oppressive.