Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1906-10-20
EXPORT DISCOUNTS.
GOODS SOLD CHEAPER ABROAD
THAN AT HOME.
Our Total Production of Manu-
featured Goods to Send For
egners at Lower Than
Current Prices in
America.

cause, said he, Illinois is equally In
terested with Maine in maintaining
protection.
In Maine Secretary Taft declared
that there was urgent need OF revising
the abuses out Of the Dingley tariff
He did not say what these abuses are,
but presumably his reason for demand
ing immediate revision is to be found
in the fact that a few American en-
ports are sold abroad at lower prices
than at home.
Wherefrom a doubt must have
arisen as to the real attitude OF the
administration, with the weight OF
probability on the urgent revision side,
for the urgent revisionist was natural
ly assumed to be voicing the views OF
the head of the official family. Such
an inference would be quite certain
to prove unfortunate for the Repub-
lican cause.
In North Carolina Secretary Shaw
was demonstrating the entirely sound
proposition that tariff reduction was
not called for because of the relatively
small quantity of domestic manufac-
lures exported at lower than home
prices, this being, in his Judgment.
much better than to reduce our tariif
50 as to enable foreigners to flood our
market with their cut-priced exports.
Again divided counsels. If Secre-
tary Taft was i'll harmony with the adj
ministration, then Secretary Shaw is
at variance with the administration. II
Mr.. Taft was right in urging immedl-
ate tariff revision downward in order
to check the evil of selling abroad
each year a few millions worth of our
manufactures at less than domestic
prices, then Mr.. Shaw is wrong in de-
Tending the practice which Keeps
American mills and factories running
full time all the year round and keeps
American labor employed without
break either in time or in wages. Both
cannot be right: or, at least, both can
not be in full harmony with the adj
minStration.
Secretary Taft evidently agrees with
Cummings, FOss and the general body
of tariff reformers that to work off an
occasional surplus in foreign markets
at bargain counter rates is grave
crime whose preparation should be
prevented by an immediate lowering
of our tariff rates. Secretary Shaw
finds the practice a common one with
every producing nation in the world,
but least prevalent in the United
States in its proportion to the total
volume Of production. He does not
regard ii as a crime, nor even a mis-
demeanOr calling for tariff reduction
as a punishment and preventive.
He is disposed to look upon export
discounts as expressly legalized by our
system of drawbacks, whereunder the
treasury department rebates back 10
the producer the tariff duties that have
been paid upon articles or materials
which enter into products sold abroad
This provision for export discounts is
not exclusively confined to the Dingley
tariff. Similar rebating provision was
contained in the Wilson-Gorman tariff
law of 1894; also in the Mckinley tar
iff Of 1890.
Secretary Taft evidently considers it
outrageous that the American con-
sumner should once in great while
pay a little higher price for an article
than some foreigners may have paid
for it, This does not seem to be
very fragrant outrage when we consid-
er that out of total manufactured
production of $l5,000,000, 900 We sell
abroad at cut prices rather less than
S., 100000 worth-that is, about
1-3O00th OF the total. The general
mass of our consumers are not griev-
ously wronged in this ratio of one to
three thousand Yet it is almost wholly
on account of this one dollar worth in
$4,000 worth that Messrs. Taft, Cum
Minis Foss. and the rest of the reform
ers think that no time should be lost
in revising the tariff downward
Secretary Shaw finds a very salts
factory offset to that 81 worth in 49,
900 worth in two facts: First, that
American labor is kept at work all the
time: and, second, that the American
workman is not required to accept re-
duced wages while producing the COM
modities that go abroad at reduced
prices. Mr.. Shaw sums up the whole
question logically and effectively
when he says that he is willing to pay
a slightly higher price than few for
eigners pay if thereby our own labor
can be kept fully employed at an UNI
diminished rate of wages.
Speaker Cannon, Secretary Shaw
and the congressional committee are
agreed that there is nothing in the
present situation that calls for down
ward revision or for any disturbance
of the tariff. They do not regard ex-
port discounts as sufficient cause for
inaugurating a period of tariff instabil-
ity and business uncertainty. Yet it
is upon this limited and inconsequenti
al volume of cut-priced sales abroad
that fully ninetenths of what Mr.. Taft
calls the growing sentiment" for i'm
mediate revision is based.