Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-09-29


law there were 2,024 items. This
included durrDle items only. The
Payne law leaves 1,15O Of these
items unchanged. There are de-
creases in 654 of the items and
increases in 220 of the items.
Now, of course, that does not
give a full picture, but it does
show the proportion of decreases
to have been three times those
of the increases.
Substantial Downward Revision.
"Now, this statement shows as con-
clusively as possible the fact that
there was a substantial downward re-
vision on articles entering into the
general consumption of the country
which can be termed necessities, for
the proportion is s5,000,000,0O0, rep
resentipg the consumption of articles
to which decreases applied to less
than 100000, 900 of articles of neces-
sity to which the increases applied.
"Now the promise of the re-
publican platform was not to re-
wise everything downward, and in
the speeches which have been
taken as interpreting that plat
form which I made in the cam
paign, I did not promise that
everything should go downward.
What I promised was that there
should be many decreases and
that in some few things increas-
es would be found necessary; but
on the whole I conceived that the
change of conditions would make
the revision necessarily down.
ward-and that I contend, under
the showing which I have made,
has been the result of the Payne
bill.
II did not agree, nor did the
republican party agree, that we
would reduce rates to such a
point as to reduce prices by the
introduction of foreign cOmpeti-
ton. That is what the free trad
ers desire. That is what the
revenue reformers desire, but
that is not what the republican
platform promised, and it is not
what the republican party wish
ed to bring about.
Tariff Bill Is Best.
ION the whole, however, I am
bound to say that I think the Payne
tariff bill is the best tariff bill that
the republican party ever passed;
that in it the party has conceded the
necessity for following the changed
conditions and reducing tariff rates
accordingly. This is substantial
achievement in the direction Of lower
tariffs and downward revision and it
ought to be accepted as such.
"Critics of the bill utterly ignore
the very tremendous cuts that have
been made in the iron schedule,
which heretofore has been subject to
criticism in all tariff bills. From
iron ore, which was cut Is per cent,
to all the other items as low as 20
per cent, with an average of some
thing like 40 to so per cent, that
schedule has been reduced so that
the danger of increasing prices
through a monopoly of the business
is very much lessened, and that was
the chief purpose of revising the tar
if downward under republican pro-
tective principles.
1.-THE severe critics of the bill pass
this reduction in the metal schedule
with a sheer, and say that the cut did
not hurt the iron interests of the
country. Well, of course it did not
hurt them. 1t was not intended to
hurt them.
1T was expected only to reduce
excessive rates SO that business
should still be conducted at profit,
and the very character of the criti-
cism is an indication of the general
injustice of the attitude of those who
make it, In assuming that it was the
promise of the republican party to
hurt the industries of the country by
the reductions which they were to
make in the tariff, whereas it ex-
pressly indicated as plainly as posi-
BILE in the platform that all of the in
dustries were to be protected against
injury by foreign competition. and
the promise only went to the reduc-
ton Of excessive rates beyond what
is necessary to protect them.
Cost of Living,
1.-THE high cost of living, Of
which so per cent is consumed in
food, rs per cent, in clothing and
Is per cent in rent and fuel, has
not been produced by the tariff.