Los Angeles herald., 1910-12-04
Chairman of Commission Gives
Official Account of Work
with Taft'S Sanction
PAPER INDUSTRY is PRoBED
Report on Schedule Almost Ready
and Experts Are DelVing
in Other Directions j.
Associated Press,

CHICAGO, Dec. 3.-Henry G. Emery,
chairman of the tariff commission, to-
night gave the first official utterance
regarding the definite aims of that
body in an address made before mem
bers of the Chicago Association of
Commerce, following a banquet at the
Congress hotel 1t can be assumed
that Chairman Emery spoke with the
APPROVAL of President Taft. He made
a strong plea for a permanent tariff
board or commission free from parti-
san influence, to conduct an extended
investigation into the industrial ef-
fects of the tariff and then to revise
the various schedules without parti-
san interference.
s"rhe main work of investigating the
industrial effects of our tariff had
been divided into three main parts"
he said, requiring three sets of in
vestigators of different types The
first part is the collection of facts re-
garding each dutiable article, showing
the character and localization of its
production at home and abroad, sta
tistics of output, imports and exports,
rates of duty reduced to ad valorem
terms, and the like.
1.-THE second part of the work is the
collection of data regarding costs of
production at the mill. The third con-
sists of obtaining information from the
best experts available regarding home
and foreign prices, local variations IN
each industry and the general condt-
tions of competition at home and
abroad"
WORK WELL UNDER WAY
The speaker mentioned the different
groups of investigators in each field
and referred to the fact that experts
4e- in
weeks have the actual conversion
costs at the mill of every leading pulp
and paper plant in the country, taken
directly from the books, and would
then be ready to take up at once the
next schedule.
"You can appreciate the necessity
we are under of concentrating our
chief efforts at first on a few main
lines" said Mr.. Emery. Naturally
everyone who has some personal griev-
ance thinks his particular shedule Is
the one that needs immediate revision.
Whether wisely or unwisely, we de-
cided to concentrate, for the moment,
on schedule M (pulp and paper;
schedule K (wool and woolens) and
schedule G (farm products). Prelim-
mary work is being done on. schedule
A (chemica1s), schedule c (metals and
manufactures of and schedule l (cot-
tons) and the more detailed work on
these will be begun as soon as pos
Sible.
Furthermore, we are obtaining many
special reports from technical experts
both at home and abroad, covering a
wide range of articles in other sched-
ules which will later form the basis for
more detailed Investigations
"At the moment, besides the mem
bers of the board, the statistician and
the strictly administrative force, we
have four chiefs of investigation, four
trained Investigators employed in the
first part of the work, and about an
equal number of clerks to assist them,
about a dozen consulting technical ex-
perts devoting a part of their time to
the third part of the work or to reports
on special topics, and twelve men in
the field getting actual cost figures
from the book Of individual procedure"
PUBLIC HEARINGS PLANNED
There has been," said Mr.. Emery,
much misunderstanding about hear
ings before the board, and many manu-
facturers have wondered how we can
be investigating their schedules with
out consulting them. The answer is
that we consider it waste of time for all
parties concerned to have them appear
before us in formal hearings till we
have first made a thorough study of
the industry and know just what we
shall invite the testimony of all inter
ested parties. We shall lay our results
openly on the table for any one to criti-
else, amend or disprove
Just as there are some who give
practically all the credit for prosperity
to the tariff, and others who think the
tariff the cause of most misfortunes,"
he continued, there are those who
think an impartial investigation of the
tariff is a menace to all business and
others who think that such an investi-
cation will, by some magic process, at
once make every mans income ade-
ouate for his expenditure and solve the
age-long problem of making both ends
meet.
ut would be a fine thing if the farm
er could always get So a bushel for his
wheat and the working man pay only
81 a barrel for his flour. Many people
are inclined to hold a government re-
sponsible which does not accomplish
such feats of alchemy and the work OF
any government agency is greatly ham
pered by the absence of a sane under
standing of what it can and what il
cannot do
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