Evening star., 1909-06-07
Some Senators Expect Early
Passage of Tariff Bill.
ATTITUDE OF OPPONENTS
Regard the Country as Impressed
With Their Arguments.
TO DEPEND ON THE C0NFEREEs
Downward Revisionists Not En-
couraged by Secretary Mac
Veagh's Statement.

Some of the republican leaders in the
Senate entertained the opinion today,
based upon a substantial foundation of
hope. that early passage of the tariff bill
is probable. The most optimistic OF them
ventured to think that it might be pos
sible to clean up the bill in the Senate
this week.
Details of the reasons for this roseate
view, in the face of generally unfavor-
able surface conditions, were not sup
piled. 1t is known. however. that the
| opponents of the bill in it's present form
have given indication of their intention
TO curtail the general debate on theil
side. They have not abated their antag-
onism to the high rates, but some OF
them think they have about exhausted
the general debate and have sufficiently
| impressed the country with the argu-
ments sustaining their criticism of the
rate.
Futility of Resistance.
1t is also suggested that realization OF
| the futility of further resistance to the
| finance committee SO poignantly indicated
| by the votes of last Saturday on the cot
| ton schedule-the one schedule deemed
most susceptible of representation as car
rying increases-leads some of the down
ward revisionists to the view that opposi-
] ton might as well be confined to votes
without long debate.
Another suggestion advanced Is that as
it becomes apparent that the hope of the
downward revisionists must rest solely
with the conference committee 1t might
| be advisable to get the bill into conference
| as soon as possible and let the real work
of revision downward begin. Certainly
the votes of the past week have been
dscouraging to the low-rate advocates,
and there is no indication of concession
on the part of the finance committee.
7! Comment on MacVeagh's Speech.
| There was good deal of comment al
| the Capitol today upon the speech of Sec
retary MacVeagh at Chicago Saturday
night when he outlined the Presidents
| attitude toward revision. That speech was
| not interpreted by the loW-tariff men as
holding out unalloyed encouragement tt
| the downward revisionists. The summing
| up of Secretary MacVeagh that revision
| downward" must be differentiated from
| revision down and OUT appears to then
| to open a wide margin of latitude for the
| protectoniStS, since it has been the con
tention all along of the high rate men ir
| the House and Senate that their figure:
represented the minimum of safety of re-
duction. and that to go below them woulc
be to go down and out"
In this connection there is some spec.
iulation as to the extent to which the
! conferees may go in the real work OF
| downward revision" which is to be pu,
| unon them How much fairWay have
they? They cannot go below the figures
fixed by the House, and in many cases
those rates are acceptable to high pro-
tectionists. Concessions on the part OF
the Senate on some OF the most i'm.
portant schedules will still leave the
rates higher than the public expected
| at the outset. 1t is a question whether
the compromise bill will be much Of a