The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-01-07
TARIFF COMMISSION
WHY IT WOULD FAIL
REPUBLICAN, PROTECTIVE TAR.
IFF WILL PUT PEOPLE
TO WORK.

IL.
says in part: u
Can the Public Ledger suppose for
one moment that the commission could
obtain reliable cost figures abroad
from individual manufacturers. when
those manufacturers would know that
the avoWed purpose was to find what
rate or rates of duty would shut out
their products from the best market in
the world?
THE important thing to keep stead
lily in mind in making protective
duty is to be certain that 1t be h!eh
enough to exclude foreign products.
Anything less than enough is not a
protective duty. And that does not
mean that there will be no importa
lions. There always will be enough to
furnish necessary revenue as witness
the large revenues derived from the
wooden schedule under the last two
amply protective republican tariffs.
There is always a considerable
number of citizens in this and all 9TH
er countries who will buy foreign
goods regardless of price, either be-
cause they are enamored of a foreign
label or want something different in
order to be exclusive. Among this
class are many to whom a high price
is the sole hallmark of quality.
Competition Fixes Prices.
Does an unnecessarily high duty
put any burden on the home purchas-
er? 1t does not, because it is a law
Of business that, in the main, the
manufacturing or primary selling
price of an article is based on the ac-
tual cost, plus only such reasonable
margin of profit as intense COMPETE
tion among domestic producers will
permit, or as Mr.. Wood states it,
Prices of goods are not fixed by the
tariff but by the active competition
of American manufacturers them
selves
In short, the home manufacturers
price Is higher than the foreign price
Of an identical commodity only to the
extent that the American standard of
wages and other cost items are high
er than the foreign.
1T follows, therefore, that the ex-
tent to which the home manufacturer
Is the beneficiary of high protective
tariff is exclusively in the opportunity
1t affords to supply the home market
by excluding foreign products The
wageearner is the beneficiary to the
extent that the employer can pay him,
and does pay him, twice to four times
the wages that are paid abroad for
identical service.
These fundamental truths are lost
sight of or unknown to men like ex-
Governor Guild, of Massachusetts,
and that is why they lay such en-
phasis upon the Importance of scien-
tiflc commissions. They argue from
the false premise that the excess above
a rate of duty that exactly measures
the difference in the cost of produce
tion here and abroad goes into the
pocket of the home manufacturers.
False Doctrine of "New Freedom"
THAT is the false doctrine of the
schoolmaster Woodrow Wilson, pro-
claimed In the New Freedom; preach
ed from the stump by Oscar Under
wood; slyly insinuated by Theodore
Roosevelt in his advocacy of a tariff
that does not stop at the office door
and of the other luminaries, all and
singular, great and small, who con-
sciously or unconsciously have per-
sistently lied about schedule K in the
newspapers, in the magazines and on
the platform.
I'VE all know that the constitutions
al power to legislate for revenue is
reserved for the congress, and even if
we concede that a commission could
obtain reliable Cata from abroad the
information would merely be a guide
for making protective duties and would
not even be considered by democrats
who hold that all protection is uncon-
stitutional There would still remain
the old, old fight over rates between
protectionists, near protectionists and
Tree traders, with Ine 1neVlIdDl6 CUM
promises incident to all legislation.
No New Tariff Problem.
1--WE have had protective tariffs in
the past that kept the wheels of in
dustry humming and general prosper
ity enthroned, and all we required to
formulate them was just old-fash-
ed common sense which republican
congresses always were able to in
yoke without the aid Of a lot of high
salarled commissioners and their num-
erous associates.
"The problem hasn't changed a bit
neither has that brand of human ma
ture which persistently keeps itself In
the limelight by prating about log
rolling privilege special Interests
predatory wealth. and other choice
morsels comprising the stock in trade
Of those political saints who are long
on language and short on essential
facts
"Vhen the republican party again
becomes intrusted with the task OF re-
storing our lost industrial prosperity
1t will not waste yeors in awaiting the
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