The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-19
REPUBLICANS IN DILEMMA
 ABOUT TARIFF INTERESTS

conditions Of industry at home and abroad. Possessing such information as might thus be obtained. congress would be in position to correct irregularities in the tariff and remove ineongruities without pulling up the whole revenue structure by the root. It would be possi- ble, MT North thinks slightly to modify the rate on particular articles from year to year so as to adjust the revenue to meet the special requirements of the gov ! ernment without creating the industrial disturbance which the very threat of wholesale revision entails.
 MT. North refers to the old tariff com- mission of 1882 to show that it was not what he has in mind except in name. It was a temporary committee, which took testimony. much as a congressional com mittee would, and formed a tariff much as would such committee. Congress was simply delegating to 1t certain func- lions which afterwards congress took pains to resume; it did not establish ma chinery for the systematic study of the actual operation of the existing tariff It had, in fact but five months to cover ground which could not be properly mas tered in less than five years.
 Interesting examples of the inadeaua- eies of our present tariff-making ma ehinery are recalled by Mir North. Com modity after commodity formerly yielded a stream of revenue which has dried up, because of the development of the in dustry at home, and while protectionists can find no fault with that, they should recognize he thinks. the responsibility which 1t places upon the government to readjust customs duties. He believes it will always be an easy matter for this government to get such revenue as 1t need for customs. So long as we im- port free of duty between $500, GOO GOO and s4O0 100000 annually we have a large un- titled acreage which. when necessary. may be brought Into cultivation. Slight changes in this free list would make good a deficit or cut down a surplus with out the industrial disorders of whole sale revision. Ups and downs of revenue under our present systems are measured not by the needs of the government, but by the conditions political and industrial, which happen to prevail at the time the law Is made and this must continue to be the case until the government under takes a permanent Investigation of the subject with the view of applying it's re- suits quickly If simple tariff remedies could displace the surgical operations of the past, tremendous gain would be scored
 This country has. since 1890. enacted three complete revlsions of the customs tariff, and the rumblings of fourth one are now heard. "A nation,' MT. North says. "can adjust it's business to any kind of a tariff; no nation can stand the kill- Ing necessity of readjusting it's indus tries to radical changes In tariffs at fre- quent intervals" And yet the average duration of our tariffs has been only seven years. The longest period without change was that between 1S46 and 1S57 And the problem grows serious with the years. In the early days of the republic, tariff revision was comparatively simple, but today, with fourteen great schedules, carrying rates of duty on more than 4O0O articles, touching so intimately the com mercial interests of a people at the very
  is different. In hurry and in confusion these great schedules are overhauled Congress, 1t is true, has some we'll equipped commit eemen and certain inl- portant sources of outside information; elaborate hearings, although of an ex parte character, yield some results, but as whole, the guiding lights of congress are so general in their character, so em- pirical, and in many instances so mislead- Ing, that their very existence emphasizes rather than obviates the necessity of an agency from which exact information may emanate as to the action of every rate of duty upon every article.
 Now the direct effect of every pro- posed change of duty must be guessed at. Mechanical calculations readily show what the revenue will be if the imports remain the same, but as they never do, even under the same rate of duty, the results of these computations are of questionable value. Under the McKin- ley tariff there was an income variation of over s35,000,0O0 in the three years oi the tariffs operation. Industrial condi. lions changed, not the rates of duty Nc other country leaves this legislative pro. vince at the mercy of such cumbersome methods. In Great Britain, the amount and, to a degree at least, the character of the annual taxation varies according to the needs of the exchequer and the varying conditions of industry. There is no revolution in the fiscal system, but an adaptation or modification, from time to time, of the same general principles, to meet the exigencies of the occasion. It is possible that MT. North's proposal may be adopted as the republican way out of the present difficulty.
 TO THE WATERFOWL.