Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1910-10-06

Tariff bill. goods. ports. prices
Mckinley, 1891 and
1884 .................. 1885 22.36 76345
Wilson. 1895-1S97 49,. 41.29 2O93 6.4153
,Dingley, 1S9S-1908 80. 47.47 2615 1876
Fayne-A!drlch, 1910. 800. 9.2310
From these figures it appears that
the duty on all imports averaged 7 per
cent and prices 16 per cent lower un-
der the Wilson bill than under the
Mckinley bill and duties % per cent
more and prices % per cent higher
under the Dingley law than under the
Wilson. These are strange coinci-
!dences if the tariff has no effect on
prices of commodities. These tables
show close relation between tariffs
and prices that corroborates the Re-
publican theory when they are franz
ing tariff bills"
AS to President Taft's statement that
the Payne-Aldrich bill meant revision
downward, the report says:
1.-The president was misled into stat
ing in his Winona speech that because
the duties in more items had been re-
Iduced than increased there had been
revision downward. This has been
clearly demonstrated by Hon. Champ
Clark in a speech in the house on June
20, 1910. He said:
The Dingley tariff consisted of items 2,ON
OF these there were unchanged ~ 115O
Leaving changes in Observation-Disclosures. 874
OF these there were raises in ...... 22O
or these there were reductions in. 654
874
"The president argued that inasmuch
as 654 items were reduced and 22O in
creased there was a revision down.
ward. 1t is an argument based on
numbers, not results, and is fallacious.
The 1924 items Dingley law
yielded duties amounting to-. 1929 1OO, 342
{Under the Payne-Aldrich laws:
The 220 items will yield
duties amounting to. $13, 2S1 1868
The 654 items reduces
; duties .................. 7,63S, $50
SO the net Increase is.............. S., GAG, 038
''This is forcibly shown in the cotton
and hemp schedules, where 200 Of the
654 items reduced are found, nearly
33 per cent Of all.'
OF the greed of the protected inter-
tests the minority say:
Experience shows us that the more
they receive the larger and more in
sistent becomes their demand Take,
as a good illustration, our knit goods
industry. Our imports Of stockings
for the last ten years have never equal
ed an average Of per cent Of our con-
sumption. Less than per cent Of the
cheap foreign goods of pauper labor
could float over the American tariff
wall, and yet in spite of this fact and
the fact that already they had a pro-
tective tariff Of from 81 to 81 per cent
they demanded last year and received
an increase to S8 per cent on that class
of goods used mostly by our citizens
of moderate means or small income"
J The majority had made the state
ment in their report that foodstuffs
such as bacon. beef, mutton. wheat
and corn were vastly dearer in Great
Britain in 1900 than in the United
States. The minority give the lie to
this statement. They show by adding
the freight rates to the American
lprices that no such difference in the
price levels is possible. They add:
'Now, to say that the American ex-
porter sold his wheat here at 70 cents
ia bushel instead Of shipping to Liver
pool at cost Of Is per cent, where he
could get an advance of SO per cent, is
absurd, or that he sold his corn here at
1873 cents when he could land it in Lfv-
erpool at a cost Of 26 per cent and
there obtain an advance Of 81 per cent,
Tor that he sold mutton here at 1927
when he could land it in Liverpool at
a cost of per cent and there get an
advance Of 105 per cent, or sold his
beef here at $S.04 when he could ship
to Liverpool at a cost Of less than 8
per cent and get an advance Of 80 per
cent All this is asking US to believe
some very unbelievable statements"
Agricultural readers who think they
derive an advantage from the tariff
will be interested in the following:
: whenever we produce any commod-
ity largely in excess of the home de-
mand the surplus must find a market
in open and free competition with the
producers of that article all over the
world This foreign market fixes the
price of that commodity for the whole
world, and no tariff we may impose