The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-05-13

| House Office building or the Senate
| office building, the Republicans-four
| from the Senate and four from the
| House-will organize themselves into a
| subcommittee. The Democrats will be
left out in the cold for week or two,
| wondering what is going on. In the
| meantime the eight Republicans will
virtually redraw the tariff bill, unless
| the Senate conferees are willing to
yield about everything to the House
conferees, which is exceedingly i'm
| probable, or unless the House con-
ferees are willing to yield nearly
everything to the Senate conferees,
| which IS equally improbable.
| Of course a vast deal of the Aldrich-
Payne bill will not be in controversy
| before this conference committee
! Wherever the Senate has adopted a
schedule, exactly as it was adopted by
the House, the conference committee
| has no jurisdiction whatever. Such
items are not in controversy. But the
| Senate has or will modify most of the
important paragraphs in the bill SO. it
remains true that in essential partlcu-
lars the bill will be made over by these
eight Republican. mandarins, who, when
| their work is done, will call in the DEM
ocrats as mere formality. The eight
| Republicans will sign the conference
report and in all probability the six
| Democrats will not sign it.
Once a conference report is made by
conference committee it is exceeding
| ly difficult to defeat it. However much
certain Republicans may dislike the YER
Il "a ! 20
House organization are behind the re-
port, which means that sooner or later,
| however fierce the fighting may have
been, that report simply has to go
through and become law.
Although people never hear much
about it, there are extensive parllamen-
tary laws and regulations governing
conference committees. And there are
peculiar privileges for Legislators IN
either branch in attempting to take GER
tain subjects out of controversy For
instance, there is the income tax pro-
vision, which the Democrats and few
Western Republicans are trying to get
upon the tariff bill. If these allied
forces should get such an amendment
upon the Senate bill-and one of the
biggest of all the struggles in the Sen
ate is being made to that end-it would
go back to the House, where there IS
probably a majority for an income tax.
The majority there, however, would be
made up. if at all, by Democrats and
Western Republicans. A motion to con-
cur in that income tax amendment
would be in order in the House and the
Speaker probably would be unable to
shut it off That is one reason why the
Republican leaders of the Senate are so
anxious to prevent the adoption of any
income tax amendment. If they have
a majority against it, there will be no
possibility of its getting upon the tarlff
bill and for the same reason the Demo
cratic and Western Republican Sena-
tors are devoting all their energies to
getting the income tax amendment upon
the bill in the Senate. If they succeed
it would be a blow to the organization
and alike to the administration, for
President Taft has declared that ne
thinks it would be unwise to attempt
such legislation at this time. Then IL
is believed that the income tax amend
ment is being used as an opening wedge
toward the abolition of the protective
system.
The House Republicans are expected
to be very tenacious in their insfstenee
for the bill as it passed their branch
of the national legislature. Ditto the
Senate Republicans. Both houses have
great pride in their own conferees, pro-
vided those conferees come back sue
eessful. Therefore the conference OF
Senate and House Republicans is not
likely to be love feast by any means.
And yet it is recognized that there must
be a deal of trading. The House Repub-
licans must yield something and the
Senate Republicans must yield some
thing. Because of that understanding,
the Senate, which always has the last