The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1903-02-20
TARIFFS AND PRICES
ARE MEAT AND FUEL AFFECTED
BY IMPORT DUTIES? "
insufficient Supply Eeing Responsible
for the Heavy Advance, the Re-
mcvaI of Tariff on Beef and Coal
Would Not Reduce Current Prices.

A tariff measure must originate III
the House of Representatives,; 1t must
be reported by the Committee on
Ways and Means; in order to be con
sidered it must have the support OF
the Speaker. The Speaker is against
any tinkering of the tariff; the Ways
and Means Committee is against II;
the House of Representatives Is
against it. Any one of the three rea'
sons is ample, and the three are not
stronger than any one alone. why
are they against tinkering the tarlif
Because bill to reduce the duty on
coal ore cert, although forced through
the House in an unamendable form
becomes subject to 5000 amendments
in the Senate, and reopens the whole
question of the tariff, from the chem-
cal schedule down to the last arucle
on the free list. No member OF the
majority party in Congress desires
that.
A discussion of the tariff by tae
Senate usually occupies from two 10
three months; so the debate would De
not only miscnievous but futile. In
this twentieth century nothing is I'M
possible but there are few politlcai
events that come so near to the line
of impossibility as a vote of any sort
upon any phase of the tariff question
during this second session OF the
Fifty-seventh Congress.
And why should the question of the
coal and beef duties be raised? The
Faneuil hall meeting said that those
duties foster monopoly People have
had to pay more for beef, and they
clamor-thas is, the free trade league
clamors-for repeal of the duty on
meat, in order to break up the beef
trust" The duty on beef is two cents
a pound. Ii the repeal of that duty
would remove an obstacle to the i'm
portation of meat, how does it happen
that when the price of beef at whole
sale went up four or five cents
pound none came into the country?
Where would beef come from If it
were free of duty? From Canada!
Some people seem to be unaware that
Canada imports more beef than 1t eX'
ports. If the duty on beef were re-
pealed and a bounty of two cents
pound were given upon beef imported,
not enough could be found to bring
into the country at profit to keep
Boston in meat for six months. The
cause of high beef was not the tariff,
nor was it a beef trust'--many Bos-
ton spectators have lately been made
aware to their cost that there is no
beef trust-but it was the short crop
of corn in 1901. Now corn is cheap
again, and beef has come down."
1t has not occurred to any one to
suggest that the tariff is responsible
for the shortage Of coal or it's high
prices One does not have much re-
spect for the intellectual ability or
honesty of those who argue that mon
opoly has anything whatever to do
with the present price of coal. There
is not enough of the coal itself The
duty of siXty-seven cents a ton 'deters
no one from buying foreign coal,
which is ten times that amount higher
than it usually is. The repeal of the
tariff duty would not reduce the price
to consumers by one cent a ton, be-
cause, since the price is wholly con
trolled just now by the relation of the
supply to the demand, and since i'm
porters are straining every nerve to
bring in all they can get, such repeal
would not result in the importation
of a pound more than is now brought
across the water.-Boston Transcript.