Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-07-21
SMOOT Attacks
TARIFF MEASURE
Says Foreign Lobby Influenced
Democrats in Framing
Bill

WASHINGTON, July zl.-ASSerllnA
that a foreign lobby had influenced
the Democrats in the framing of the
Underwood Simmons tariff bill, Sena-
tor Smoot, Republican member of the
nnance committee, today delivered
vigorous attack on the measure. He
painted picture of mills shut down,
Workmen unemployed, investors
ruined and an era of general financial
and industrial depression as the re-
suit of the leveling of tariff walls.
European nations, he declared, were
not so much to be feared as COM
petitors as were the nations Of the
Orient.
There has been a lobby here in
behalf of foreign manufacturers" he
charged, such as was never before
witnessed in the history of the ma
ton, and they have got even more
than they asked for. The Italian
Chamber of Commerce of New York
asked for certain reductions. and the
Democrats in nearly every case have
given them more than they asked"
Would Ruin Sugar Industry.
The senator assailed the increase
in the free list, especially with refer
ence to sugar, wool, pig-iron and tex
tiles, He charged that sugar indus
try of Hawaii and Porto Rico would
be ruined with consequent benefits
to the so-called sugar Crust" and
that China with It's great steel plants
would capture the steel business Of
the Western hemisphere.
Referring to the Walker tariff bill
of 1850 on which he contended the
present bill was largely modelled, Mr..
Smoot said the Walker law provided
for the admission free of only about
per cent. of imports, while the I'm
derwood- Simmons measure allows 30
per cent. of the greatly increased
volume of incoming trade to enter
untaxed. Under the Walker law, he
added, the average rate of duty on
all imports was 23.16, while under the
proposed new law the rate would be
merely a trife over Is per cent.
Recalls Wilson Law 0uteOmes.
"All the world knows how this
country suffered as result of the
Wilson tariff law In 1885," he CON
tinued, but the average rate of duty
now is over 2 per cent. lower than
was the case under the last Demo-
cratic tariff, when the business of
the nation was paralyzed and 3,000,-
600 persons thrown out of employ
ment."
Senator Smoot charged the Demo-
Gratis with inconsistencies in the
framing of the measure. Calling at
tention to the fact that wheat, -four,
corn and cornmeal, potatoes and vir-
tually every form of meats 20 on the
free list, certain food products, pc
culiar to the South, remained under
tariff tax.
Duty on Poor's Food.
"Rice, peanuts and bananas, grown
In the South" he charged ARE on
the dutiable list They are used by
poor people generally. In Porto Rico
rice is consumed to the extent of
one hundred pounds per ca eita. 1t
can be used instead of corn and
wheat. But corn, wheat, potatoes
and other such products go on the
free list, while rice Is made dutiabie."
The Senator then launched into a
detailed comparison of the cost of
production and the wages paid in
the United States and abroad, and
asserted the removal of duties was
an open invitation to foreigners TO
use the United States as q dump
ing ground for their surplus
products.
China and Japan, he said, with
their ever-increasing mills, would
prove disastrous competitors in the
home market, especially in the steel
industry He concluded by declar-
ing that "the question of the future
will be that of competition with the
starvation wages of Asia instead of
with the low rates of Europe"
Denounces Free Trade.
Denunciation of free trade as a
timely policy for the United States, a
prediction of failure in its purposes
for the Underwood Simmons tariff
bill, and an attack on an advalorem
tariff system, were voiced by Sena-
tor Burton, of Ohio, today.
Senator Burton declared he was no
worshipper of protection as ''fet-
ish, but that he approached the
subject of the tariff rather with the
conviction that whenever there shall
be an era of comfy and mutual con-
cession in trade among nations and
our country shall have reached a
point when its productive capacity
has been fully developed, free trade
might be a rational policy"
Such, he said, was not the case,
the disposition "to restrict trade
among nations and to grant access
to markets only on rendering con-
cessions in return" being on the in