The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-03-12

and the insurgents" have been ordered
to stand aside. AS TO the purpose and
character of the bill to be passed, the
New York Times made the following
reference a few days ago;
1T is reported, with some authority,
that the tariff bill, which will be sub
mitted in two weeks by the majority
of the ways and means committee OF
the house, will include an ingenious
provision for lower rates Of duty and
higher protection. The device is to
change the appraised value of imported
goods from the market price abroad
now required, to the market price in
the United States, which, of course, in
the great mass of cases, is decidedly
higher. Otherwise goods would not be
imported.
1T is easy TO see how this could be
made to work TO serve the interests of
the beneficiaries of the high tariff. The
average rate of duty on imported goods
of all sorts, subject to duty, is about so
per cent. Suppose it 10 be reduced by
one-fifth, or to 40 per cent. That is,
the tax on 800 worth of goods at the
present assessed value would be $40 in
stead of $50. But if the price in the
United States is, say, 80 per cent high
er, the assessed value is advanced to
$130 and the amount of duty al 40 per
cent becomes $50, a very comfortable
result for the favOrites of the tariff of
the much-vaunted revision The only
argument in favor of this preposterous
change is that it would tend TO make
differentiation more difficult and af-
ford stricter protection for home in
dustries. This is undoubtedly true. But
the temptation to differentiation lies
in the extravagant rates of duty, and
the real remedy for it is to reduce these
rates. On the other hand, the proposed
new basis of assessment would give,
and is intended TO give, an undue ad-
vantage to the domestic manufacturer
and to impose an undue burden on the
domestic consumer. In regard to the
large portion of our imports. which con-
sists of materials for home industry, to
be worked up by home labor, it is a
scheme to hamper that industry and
labor in the interest of a few selected
favorites."
The New York newspaper thinks it
incredible that so rank and brutal
piece of oppression can be perpetrated
by the ways and means committee"
but judging from past performances of
the Republicans on protective lines.
they are capable of any action which
will line the pockets of the favored few
at the expense of the many.
An attempt will be made to raise rev.
enue by stamp taxes and the imposition
of duty on coffee of 4 or cents per
pound, which would mean 10 cents ex-
ira to the consumer, and which, owing
TO the fact that such action has been
anticipated and millions of pounds of
coffee imported, would not produce any
revenue for many months to come. The
burden is to be put upon the backs of
those least able to bear 1t. Senator Nc
Laurin of Mississippi, who is in a posi-
ton to know whereof he speaks, says
that "the proposed revision of the tariff
will result in the preparation of
fraud upon the nation" If so, it will
not be the first fraud worked off by the
party in power when it has had a
chance to play favorites.
Unless there is an honest revision of
the tariff, the Taft administration be
gins its existence under the shadow of
a monumental political crime.