The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-14
REPUBLICANS ARE NOT
 WILLING ID CUT RATES
Country Is Not Satisfied to Allow Tariff Tinkers to Maintain High Rates on Products That
 Need No Protection.
ey WArTERsoN srEALEY.


 Washington, April 13.-(Special. 1-Rep. resentative Underwood of Alabama. whose tariff views are always Illuminating. brings out clearly in an interview today the undesirabilty of the Payne tariff bill as reported to the Senate and the futility of expecting tariff reduction from the republican party.
 This bill" said MT. Underwood "ss whole is undoubtedly as prohibitive in character as when 1t left the House and even more so than the Dingley bill The fact that the finance committee has stricken sections and { from the bill relating to the maximum and minimum tariff rates, the inheritance tax and the bond provisions, leaves the most essential provisions absolutely in doubt If the blll were enacted Into law as reported from the Senate it would fall $400O0.OOo or sa. o0O,000 short of the necessary amount re- quired to support the government. The real difficulty that the republican man agers In the Senate and House are fac Ing is the fact that they are not willing to reduce the prohibitory rates of the Dngley act to revenue basis. Now the country will not be satisfied to allow
 
 ducer takes all the taxes and the u.v- ernment gets none. Under these crcuin- stances the country is unwilling to allow Congress to impose additional taxes for the support of the government
 Prohibitve Duty.
 How can you raise revenue when you do not allow importations to come in, the country?" asks MT. Underwood. For instance, the duty under the Dingley bill on lemons Is l cent a pound or equal to an ad valorem rate of about AT per cent. In 1907 there were 15o0OO,oOO pounds of lemons imported, paying a revenue cf sl,oSs,oOo. The testimony showed that un- der the cent pound duty the asn1oa raisers of California had absolute 4sontaeI Of the American market from califorAia to the Allegheny mountains and were alle to sell in competition with foreign lemons In New York and the east Now in ofeer that the Californians might have the en- tire market to exploit they demanded. an increase from l cent to 11R cents 1'n.s increase will be sufficient to drive every foreign lemon out of the market make the rate prohbitive and deprive the eov- ernment of $1,500 900 in revenue
 'SThe Payne bill yielded to the demand to the extent of raising the duty to 1h cents pound but the Senate finance committee has compiled with the demand to make the rate prohibitive by raising to 11s cents, which simply means that the $1500,000 that the government has been collecting will go into the pockets of the California producer and the government has to raise the equivalent by an inheri- tance, income or some other special tax This is a very fair sample of how a re- publican bill is made prohlbitive and shows how revenue could be obtained by dropping rates and making the home pro- ducer share a part of the profits derived  ment In great measure it is the same way throughout the bill.
 Changes Made.
 "The changes made in the chemical schedule are an advance rather than a reduction" continued MT. Underwood but the classification is an improvement Changes in the glass and earthenware schedule are largely related to classifca- tion. There is no material change in the schedule The metal schedule Is in better condition than in the Payne bill In the main they have made reductions in this schedule and better balanced it. though leaving bilets at -fortieths of 1 cent a pound and steel rails at the same figure though it costs $3,22 to convert a billet into steel rails which shows that bilets are too high or steel rails too low. They have partly restored the Dingley rates in iron ore by providing duty of 25 cents a ton. This is clearly a revenue duty and ought to provide at least s50O0O0. The putting of ferromanganese In the same paragraph as pig iron at a specific rate of F 50 ton is clearly mistake as fer romanganese sells from s42 to s60 a ton. It Is used as an alloy in the manufacture of steel As the value of ordinary pig iron Is about s20 a ton it is apparent that fer romanganese should not have the same rate, but should be placed in a paragraph with other ferro alloys, and have an ad Valorem rate of 1h her cent '