Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1909-10-14
POINTS OUT MERITS
PRESIDENT TAFT'S ARGUMENTS
ON PAYNE BILL.
Chief Executive Clearly Shows That
Pledges of the Republican Party
Made to the People Have
Been Kept.

President Taft has made his eagerly
looked for tariff speech and has de-
clared himself in terms which will
please the great majority of the Amer
lean people, who are neither free trad
ers nor extreme protectionists. With
characteristic frankncss Mr.. Taft ad-
mits the defects of the Payne bill.
With judicial care he weighs its mer-
its and its faults and decides that,
judged as a whole, it is good. He
makes no pretence that it is an easy
task to revise a tariff. nor does he
minimize the difficulties which con-
front the conscientious legislator who
seeks to ascertain the cost of produc-
ton at home and abroad. He makes
clear his expectation that the new
board will devote itself to the task.
Discussing the tariff bill as a whole,
Mr.. Taft shows that the Payne tariff
bill makes three times as many de-
creases as increases; that decreases
have been made on articles entering
into consumption to the amount of
$4,000, 100000 mostly necessaries, and
increases on articles entering into
consumption to the amount of 1851 :
0000, Of which $579,000,000 are lux
uries. Concretely stated, therefore,
the Payne bill, measured in terms of
consumption, made decreases on COM
modities to the amount of $4,000, ,000,-
900 and increases on the necessaries
of life To the amount of 1912, 100000
only. IN the light of this showing it
was certainly unnecessary for the
president to make any profound apol-
ogy for his course in signing the bill
or any excuse for those who voted
for it.
Taking up the method of reasoning
which was used by the insurgents"
in congress, the comparison of i'm
ports under the various schedules of
the old and the new law, Mr.. Taft dis
misses it as wholly misleading, say
ing Nothing could be more unjust
in protective tariff which also con-
tains revenue provisions"
To the extreme "stand-patter' Mr.
Taft's discussion of the tariff bill will
doubtless prove almost as unsatisfac-
tory as 1t will to the free trader. His
declaration that the wool schedule
ought to have been reduced, that 'it
Is the one important defect in the
present Payne tariff bill and in the
performance of the promise of the
platform to reduce rates to a differ
ence in the cost of production with
reasonable profit to the manufactur-
err" will afford as little solace to the
Injured feelings of the range sena-
tors" as to the woolen manufacturers
of the east. His intimation that the
schedules will have to be still further
revised when his new tariff board shall
have acquired the information he will
demand of it will disquiet the heart
of the extreme "stand-patter." But to
the great majority of the voters, in
Guiding not only Republicans but a
large number of latter-day Democrats,
Mr.. Taft's attitude will strongly COM
mend itself.
Not least important was Mr.. Taft's
broad intimation that the next presi-
dental campaign would be fought out
on tariff lines, that three years hence
the tariff board would have acquired
the information necessary to the con-
sideration Of the tariff on a more sci
entific basis than ever before and that
by that time the Republican party
would be ready to go before the
people with definite proposition
Three years is a long period in poll
tics. but thsre can be little doubt that
if the question of revision of the tariff
is then uppermost the people will re.