The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1911-12-20
WOODEN DUTIES
ARE PROHIBITORY
Tariff Boards Report on Schedule
X Sent to Congress by
President.
SUGGESTS RATE REDUCTIONS
Retail Merchant is Shown to Get
The Biggest Profit.
"Prohibitory Duties" Do Not Affect
Consumer so Much as Might
Be Inferred.

Washington, Dec. 2O.--The tariff
Congress today by President Taft, sug-
gests a general revision of the duties
on wool and woolens, and many indi-
vidual reductions in the rates. The
board makes no recommendations, but
points out what changes are desired.
In nearly all classes of the schedule.
the boards experts report the MAJOR
ity of tho rates OF duty prohlbitory
and condemns the systems of levying
them.
The report points the way to two
great changes In the present system
of levying duties upon raw wool and
finished cloth. 1t would assess duty
on scrubbed wool-not wool and grease
combined: and suggests a graduated
scale of ad valorem rate on cloth.
Report Divided Into Sections.
The report is divided into sections:
VIZ: Raw wool, yarn and cloth.
They are taken up in the order In
which they come i'm production and
manufacture.
On raw wool, the board finds the
present system of levying duty bad.
and the duties higher than the differ
ence in cost OF production in the
United States as compared with the
cost abroad. The method OF levyins
duty is condemned because 1t charges
for grease as well as for wool and
operates to keep out OF this country
the heavy shrinking woolens.
on tops, from which yarn is made.
the present rate of duty is found to be
prohibitory II costs so per cent more
I'm the United States to convert tops
into yarn than 1t does anywhere else.
on yarn, from which cloth Is WOW
en-. the present rate of duty is found to
be prohibitory because IL keeps out
all except the finer grades.
on cloth, the present rate of duty
is pronounced prohibltory on heavy
weight, cheap and medium grades
cloths, principally because Of the spec
ific compensatory duty which fixes
certain charge per pound before the ad
valorem rate begins. It. costs 100 per
cent more TO make cloth from yarn in
the United States than II does in Eng
land or France. The present system
OF fixing the same ad valorem rates or
duty on different grades of fabric Is
condemned as unfair.
The board holds that a fair soiu-
tion would be the adoption OF a grad
uated scale under which the ad valo-
rem rate properly assessed on goods OF
low value should then increase prog
resslvely according to slight incre-
ments of value, up TO whatever max
/ imum rate should be fixed.
Cost of Suit Of Clothes.
The boards figures would seem to
show that the "prohibitory duties" do
not affect the American consumer SO
] much as would be Inferred by the use
\ Of those words; for while the duties
on sixteen samples of foreign cloth
selected by the board averaged 1874
per cent the actual excess OF the do
|, mestic price over the foreign price
was found to be 67 per cent as the
result of domestic competition.
AT the present time the industry
in general is on a competitive basis
says the report
The cost of a suit OF clothes from
the back Of sheep 10 the back OF .
{ man is computed in the report and the
profits which accrue in the process
r are traced to their sources. For pur'
noses of computation the board take
n suit of clothes retailing at $23 ane
+ wholesaling at $3.50. This is said t'