The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-04-16
WASHINGTON.
New Tariff Bill to Prove
Satisfactory
A LIVELY KICK ON HOSIERY RATE.
Increased Tariff on Stockings Will
Not Increase Cost-Whatever
Burden There is Will be
Borne by Importers
and Dealers.

of the Senate Finance Committee
expect to report the tariff bill to
the Senate by April 18th and II
possible on an earlier date. The
Committee is holding night sessions
and it has disposed of more than
three-fourths of the bill. The bill
it will report will differ widely
from the bill the House passed. AS
a rule it has increased the duties
proposed in that measure.
The members of the Committee
confidently predict that rs finally
passed the bill will be entirely sat
isfactory to the country. They
assert that much of the adverse
criticism of certain schedules is
wholly without reason and due to
misinformation regarding the effect
of the proposed changes upon the
prices the consumer will pay after
the bill becomes law. Every
change has been carefully consider
ed from the viewpoints of the man
ufacturer. the working man and
the consumer. In its efforts to Sc
cure all of the facts the Committee
has taken advantage of every avail
able source of information. In ad-
dition to hearings given representa-
tives of every branch of an indus
try affected the Committee has heard
the arguments of the wholesaler and
retailer as we'll as tariff experts, who
have given it the benefit of many
years study of the operation of the
tariff system. Senators on the
Committee are confident that the
bill as. it becomes a law will not
increase the cost to the consumer
of any so-called necessity"
The schedule at which most of
the criticism has been directed is
the one relating to hosiery. Mem
bers of the Finance Committee ex
press surprise over the fact that
so many misleading statements re-
garding that schedule have ap-
peared in the newspapers. These
statements come from importers
who oppose any duty whatever and
who are conducting a systematic
campaign against the tariff bill
Recently they furnished the news
papers of every large city with an
alleged expert analysis of the tex
tile schedule of the Payne bill. In
this statement the public was in
formed that the bill proposes a
twenty cent increase" on low grade
hosiery. There followed an infer
ence that on the day the bill be-
came effective the price of such
stockings would be increased twen-
ty cents a pair. Ever since this
statement was printed women in
i sections of the country have
Deen sending members of Congress
protests against the hosiery sched-
ule.
The Payne bill increases the duty
on nearly every grade of high priced
stockings and on certain grades of
low priced stockings, the kind that
sell at retail for from ten to twen-
ty-five cents per pair. The in
creases in the high grades were
chiefly for revenue purposes. The
trainers of the bill proceeded upon
the theory that a woman who buys
silk stockings at the prices they are
sold now for can also afford to pay
the increase that would result from
the new duty, in the event there
should be any increase to the con-
sumner. The duty on cheap stock
ings was increased not for revenue
purposes but solely for the protec-
tion of the American workingman
engaged in the manufacture of
those grades of goods. The duty
proposed will not increase the con-
sumer's price of pair of cheap
stockings to the extent of a frac-
tion of cent The proposed in
twenty-five cent stockings is not
twenty cents a pair as the import
ers and proprietors of large de-
partment stores would have the
women believe. 1t is twenty cents
on one dozen pairs or one and two
thirds cents pair. Under the new
rate the grade of stocking affected
could be imported into this country
at $1.90 and goods which have
bee 1 wholesaled at that price never
have sold for more than twenty-five
cents a pair. The tariff experts and
the manufacturers agreed that any
increase in the price would be I'M
possible owing to the competition
that prevails in the wholesale and
retail dry goods trade. The United
States is not only the greatest
stocking manufacturing country; ii
manufactures more stockings than
the combined output of the rest of
the world. The only country that
might compete with the United
States in the manufacture of cheap
stockings is Germany, which coop
les" our machines and other textile
inventions and operates them with
labor that is maid three hundred
per cent, less wages than are paid
in this country for exactly the same
kind of work. The last official fig
ures relating to wages in Germany
show that men knitters in 1907
were paid S295 year and women
knitters $165. In the hearings be-
fore the committees of the House