Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-07-10
Some Features of the New Tariff
Bill.

Under great outbursts of public
disapproval Aldrich has reduced the
Payne increases on hosiery and the
scandalous increased rates on wo-
mems gloves. But these items can
be effectively traded back to Payne
by Aldrich in conference, in return
for concessions by Payne to Aldrich
increases Payne's excessive in
creases over the Dingley duties on
glass and glassware for the use of
the household are fully maintained
by both Payne and Aldrich For
the benefit of the steel trust as
against some other steel manufacture
ing concerns, Aldrich has nullified
Payne's proposal of free iron ore
and for the benefit of the beef trust
as against the shoe and leather man
ufactures. he will do likewise with
free hides.
Aldrich said that his bill carried
practically no changes in the cotton
manufactures and wooden schedules,
but Dolliver and LaFollette, both re-
publicans. have proven in the senate
that practically throughout these
schedules the duties are greatly in
creased. For the most part this has
| been done by a shrewd rewriting OF
the definitions and classifications, sc
| that heavy increases are in many
cases effected without changing
rates. Dolliver showed also that Aid.
rich had the manufacturers agents
fix up these details.
A carefully prepared calculation Ny
an expert in the dry goods trade pub
| lished in the journal of commerce
shows that in the Aldrich schedule
| there has been revision upward
amounting to 27.27 per cent on al
| impOrtations of cotton cloths, as dis
tinguished from articles" 'laces
embroideries, ready-to-wear goods
A proposed amendment that no duty
on wooden goods should exceed 1Ot
per cent was defeated. Aldrich re
marking that many items in the
wooden schedule required much NOR,
than 100 per cent.
In the Aldrich linen schedule tn,
sly introduction of an additional
word in certain place effects an in
crease of about 80 per cent in tn,
existing rate of duty on almost al
the cheap grades of damasks, nap
kins, damask crash, huckabacks ant
| figured linens. This is for the fur
Their advantage of certain manufac
turers of cotton goods. Aldrich'
bill surpasses all predecessors il
"jokers," indirections, conceale,
meanings. treacherous definitions
ETC., and in the complications an,
difficulties of the always mysteriou
cotton and wooden schedules.
In the pulp and paper schedul
reduction which Payne had concede,
at the practically universal deman,
of the newspapers and publishers
The reduction of cents per hundre,
pounds in the rate on refined suga
| is a trifiing matter as to the prOtec
ton for the sugar trust and othe
refiners, and still more trifling as t,
the consumers. Aldrich and Lodg
have been saying that there are 81!
reductions in as many paragraphs o
the pending bill as against 80 in
creases. They do not say the bill
provides a lower average of dutie
imam the existing law, but would lik'
nave the public infer this from
d., misleading statements. The re
, in tH are practically all like thos,
f wh;oh chemical schedule. anon
nh prominent mercbant cot,
almost hundred revisions so s.'
ward and not one of them ANEW, w :, !.
to anything" amount
: Aldrich and his associates are tai
ing plenty of rope in this tariff re
vision, and it will probably han
them. These senators who are no,