The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-03

cially weak in view of the Presidents . general constitutional power to negotiate treaties. wholly ndspendent of the sugI gestion of any tariff act.
 Of the treaties specifically revived that with France comprehends all the issues raised in the entire controversy. It is about the only one which promised to ac. complish much for American trade. and correspondngly it was the one which cu. deepest into the feelings of over-protect- ed manufacturers at home. The Argen- tine treaty has aroused such opposition from the wool growers. who hold the key to the protective arch, that attempts at it's ratification were abandoned by its authors at an early stage.
 For the French treaty they continued to make the fight Nearly all the debate in the Reciprocity Conference, held here last October. centered around this one act. 1t was in regard to its concessions to France that Charles Heber Clark of Philadelphia, painted so piteous pic ingman to the "souphouses' of the free trade" regime and 1t was it's concessions to our goods in France which the agri- cultural implement manufacturers em- phasized as so important Unlike most of the other treaties 1t promised to amount to something. France has a sys- tenn of maximum and minimum tarim rates; she gives the minimum to every confronts us with the straight maximum. If this treaty were .consummated she would give us the minimum on every thing except nineteen articles, this ex- emption being due to the insistence of her commissioners that we were not of fering enough in return to buy com plete minimum schedule. The nineteen exceptios include boots and shoes, ma chine tools and dynamos We allowed, however, the full remission authorized by the Dingley act-20 per cent. Of its ex- orbitant rates-on, only eight articles coming in from France. These are cot ton hosiery and knit cotton goods. toys, nuts, coai-tars dyes and colors, plants and ,eeds, certain furs and feathers, and mineral waters. We allowed on spec tacles and glasses a remission of only one-tenth of the Dingley rates. and on other articles as Little as one-twenueth And yet this was the most sweeping of the thirteen kasson treaties.
 What effect its consideration in connec- ton with Cuban reciprocity will have cannot be predicted; Some very pecu. it's approval now at the hands of a Re publican Senate, after its dreary failure to secure any attention in the past. It Is said that some of the extreme oppon- ents of Kasson reciprocity have become convinced that they must make some con- cession, this being the least costly to avert the possibility of more radical handling of the sacred schedules or vacclnation argument for reciprocity. The other side of the economic fence hopes for the success of the Kasson treaties because of their entering wedge value, and thus they may be regarded as either the "handmaiden of protection" or as ''step toward free trade.
 Their road to success in either guise is not easy. The Californians are afraid of the fruit of Jamaica, and they have recently instructed their representatives in Congress against any yielding along this line. If all the interests supposed to be adversely affected by all the recip- rocity projects should combine again, their ability to defeat everything In sight could not be questioned and Cuban recip- rocity would be weighted down rather than aided by an alliance with the kas- son treaties, or any new projects of the same sort. It Is not customary for Re- publicans to adjust tariff rates. either directly or in reciprocity treaty, by sec ing how much the various interests affect ed are willing to remit of the needless advantages they now possess.
 President Roosevelts Trust program. when he has definitely selected the ire arm which promises to hit the deer and to miss the calf, will be about as dini- cult to deal with as the reciprocity treaties especially if that program In wolves the tariff in any way. and unless 1t does this, it will bear the marks of insincerity and ineffectiveness so clearly on it's face as to repel the support which it would need for success.