The Topeka state journal., 1911-09-21

10 per cent; and the average duty on
Woo1ens, 55 per cent. The bill, against
the vote of nearly all of the regular
Republicans and some insurgent Re
publicanS, passed the senate and was
sent to conference, where a bill was
agreed upon in which the duty was 20
per cent on raw wool, and an average
of 49 per cent on wOo1ens. This bill
had the effect of raising the duty on
carpet woods, as fixed in the senate, 19
per cent, and as fixed in the house, 9
per cent. Here was the first case pre-
sented to me. There was nothing in
the record in either the house or SEN
ate from which 1 could obtain any in
formation as to the effect of this bill
upon the wool and wooden industry Of
this country. 1 submit that the his
tory of its making shows no principle
whatever in the bill except a COM
promise between two opposing prin-
ciples for the purpose of passing the
bill, without any indication as to its
effect on the industry to which it ap-
plies.
This bill reduced the duty on wool
ems to an average of 40 per cent with
a duty on the raw material wool of 20
per cent. The Wilson bill, passed in
1894, had reduced the duty to SO per
cent, with no duty on the raw wool at
all, much more favorable arrange
ment to the manufacturers than in the
present bill, and yet the years of the
Wilson bill were years of disaster to
the woolen manufacturers. It may be
that other causes than the tariff con-
tributed to the failure of wooden mills
in the time of the Wilson bill, and it
may well be that conditions in the
woolen business have changed so that
it does not need as much protection as
then; but I had no adequate informa-
ton. and had been furnished none,
upon which / could say that the bill
presented to me was in accord with
the Republican platform of protection
upon which I was elected, and to
which I am in honor bound to square
my official act and policy. In the alb
Sence of such adequate information,
and with the prospect of securing it in
duty to withhold my approval of the
BILL What was the necessity for such
great haste in passing the bill at an
extra session called for another pur-
pose? The bill as it passed the house
provided it should go into effect Janu-
ary l, 1912. The bill as it passed the
senate contained a similar provision.
When the bill went into conference, I
am informed that the suggestion was
made that the date of January 1, 1912,
for its taking effect would furnish a
strong argument for delaying IT'S pass
age until after December /. when the
tariff board could report. The date of
taking effect was thereupon changed to
October Is, 1911. Such care was not
taken with the free list bill or the cot
ton bill, both of which We're made to
take effect January 1. 1912.
Schedule X Needed Revision.
Schedule K had been in force so
long and its percentages were so high
in many respects that I had not hesi-
tated in times past to say that it ought
to be reduced, and to explain how it
came not to be reduced in the Payne
bill as 1t ought to have been But it is
one thing to know that a schedule of
this sort is too high, and it is a very
different thing in such complicated
schedule to know upon what items the
reductions should be made and how
great the reductions ought to be. If
the principle to which I am committed,
and to which the party is committed in
the strong terms of the resolutions,
which I have quoted above, was to be
observed as a policy at all, here was
the occasion for following it. If L had
allowed the wool bill to become a law,
the progress made in public opinion to-
ward a better method of revising the
tariff would have been entirely lost
and the policy cast to the winds.
Some defense is made of the bill on
and means had considered it carefully |
in committee for a month or more, |
but the point is that the bill they pre- |
pared is not this bill 1t is changed in /
all of it's rates and materially changed /
10 meet by compromise a bill that was /
never in committee at ALL and the |
blending was done, as was said, with /
tblacksmiths tools" The house bill |
was a free-trade or at least an anti
protection bill what the hybrid was, |
who could tell? In view of the enor-
nous value of the wool and wooden in
lustry which might be disastrously af-
'ected by the bill, was it asking too
much to delay the bill, under the cir
for 80 days merely to Sc