The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-29

there were corresponding reductions on the finished product. His excuse Is that Congress did not know what 1t was do- Ing, that it's work was not according to Gunter. But then the Congress which made the Payne-Aldrich law, which he signed, was Just ignorant, and cer- tainly it did not operate on Gunter lines
 MT. Taft lays down the rule that 1t is irn-
 possible for anybody to know anything
 about the tariff except "tarifY board"
 that he created that Is composed of three standpat republicans, one Randall democrat and an expert who is a nonde- script politically The secretary of this
 board amuses himself writing letters to -tandpat newspapers in which he seeks to
 maintain that 1t is immoral to assail protective tariff.
 Now. that is the fount of wisdom whence Congress is admonished to drink deep and learn something about the tariff. The real mission of this board is to do just what it has done-defeat a change of the Payne law. Having ae- complished that, Its next move will be to delay a change of that law. They are on wild goose tunket somewhere at pub lie exenpse to find out the difference be- tween the cost of production at home and abroad. something that cannot be done at all, and if it were possible to do it at all it would take years to do 1t. Suppose this board appear in great woolen man ufactory at Leeds and call for the boss, who greets them. They say, MT Tweeds what does 1t cost you to make a yard of server" MT Tweeds would answer in diplomatic way. You go to the devil" Would you, who read this tell some body for publication the secrets of your business, if you are a business man? If you go out proclaiming that from the housetops, how long before you would make progress through a bankrupt court? Now, 1t is possible that these peo- pie that Taft has appointed to get infor- nation will come back chock full of it.
 it is certain that they will; but there will not be a grain of fact in the bushel of guesses it will contain.
 I don't say the board" will seek to deceive: but what they learn will be mis- leading, for the manufacturers of Eng land, France Germany and Holland dare not going to open their books to them or to anybody else. and they can get the in-
 formation from nobody but. the manufae- turers
 President Taft is a lawyer and has been
 on the bench. The Constitution says that 1 Congress shall have power to make tar l ifs: but here comes President Taft and l says that Congress is incapable of per l forming it's constitutional duties, that he l has appointed a board to make a riff
 and nobody else is fit for that job. That l is what his message says and all it says 1 Why go to the expense of a congress if five men of whom the people never heard | can be turned into a board" and make a tariff that Congress must accept if the | tariff is to be changed at all?
 As for Schedule K of the Payne law. it could not carry a single state of the Union as against the Underwood LaFol- lette measure. faulty as the latter is
 If it were left to popular vote the Payne law would be defeated 10 to 1. II would not carry a single congressional district in the middle west. IL would not carry
 half a dozen districts in the states that
 were slave in 1860 and subsequently,
 known as the solid south, including West Virginia.
 MT. Tafts veto is in more contempt of public opinion than any other paper that ever came from the White House. He wants a scientific tariff. So say we all
 and the only scientific tariff possible is one without shred of protection except the mildest incidental"