The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1921-12-09

attention of your membership to pub
lie work. 1t would suggest insincer-
ity if / expressed complete accord
your roll calls, but we are all agreed
about the difficulties and the newt
able divergence of opinion In seeking
adjustment of the burdens of taxa
ton. Later on, when other problems
are solved, l shall make some rec
concentrations about renewed .consid-
Grafton of our tax progress, but for
the immediate time before us we must
be content with the billion dollar re-
duction in the draft upon the people,
and diminished irritations, banished
uncertainty and improved methods of
collection. BY your sustainment of
the rigid economies already inaugur-
ated. with hoped-for extension of
these economies and added efhciencies
in administration. l believe further
reductions may be enacted and him
dering burdens abolished
In these urgent economies we shall be
immensely assisted by the budget system
for which you made provision in the ex-
traordinary session. The first budget is
before you. Its preparation is a signal
achievement, and the perfection of the
system. a thing impossible in the few
months available for its initial trial. will
mark its enactment as the beginning of
the greatest reformation in governmental
practices since the beginning of the re-
public.
As to Foreign Loans.
There is pending a grant of authority
to the administrative branch of the gov
eminent for the funding and settlement
of our vast foreign loans, growing out
of our grant of war credits. With the
hands of the executive branch held inn
potent to deal with these debts, we are
hindering urgent establishments among our
debtors and accomplishing nothing for
ourselves. think it is fair for the con-
gress to assume that the executive
branch of the government would adopt no
major policy in dealing with these mat
tiers which would conflict with the purpose
of congress in authorizing the loans, GER
tainly not without asking congressional
approval, but there are minor problems
incident to prudent loan transactions and
the safeguarding of our interests which
cannot even be attempted without this
authorization. 1t will be helpful to our
selves and it will improve conditions
among our debtors if funding and the set
Element of defaulted interest may be ne
gotiated.
Merchant Marine.
The previous congress, deeply concerned
in behalf of our merchant marine, in
1920 enacted the existing shipping laws,
designed for the upbuilding of the Amer
lean merchant marine. Among other
things provided to encourage our ship
ping on the worlds seas, the executive
was directed to give notice of the termi-
nation of all existing commercial treaties
in order to admit of reduced duties on
imports carried in American bottoms
During the life of the act no executive
has complied with this order of the con-
gress. When the present administration
came into responsibility, it began an early
inquiry into the failure to execute the
expressed purpose of the Jones act. Only
one conclusion has been possible. Frank
ly, members of house and senate, eager
as l am to join you in the making of an
American merchant marine commensurate
with our commerce, the announcement of
n11r a0r1ar1 arcia fraa inv nc
in chaos of trade relationships and add
indescribably to the confusion of the al
ready disordered commercial world.
Our power to do so is not disputed, but
power and ships, without comfy of re-
lationship, will not give us the expanded
trade which is inseparably linked with
great merchant marine. Moreover, the
applied reduction of duty, for which the
treaty announcements were necessary, en-
couraged only the carrying of dutiable
imports to our shores, while the tonnage
which unfurls our flag on the seas is both
free and dutiable, and the cargoes which
make a nation eminent in trade are out
going rather than incoming.
1t is not my thought to lay the problem
in detail before you today. 1t is desired
only to say to you that the executive
branch of the government, uninf1uenced
by the protest of any nation, for none
has been made, is well convinced that
your proposal, highly intended and heart
lily supported here, is so fraught with diff
discourage trade expansion that / invite
your tolerance of noncompliance for
very few weeks until plan may be pre-
sented which contemplates no greater
draft upon the public treasury and which,
though yet too crude to offer it today,
gives such promise of expanding our mer-
chant marine that it will argue its own
approval. 1t is enough to say today that
we are so possessed of ships, and the
American intention to establish a mer-
chant marine is so unalterable, that a
plan Of reimbursement, at no other cost
than is contemplated in the existing act
the hope of all the American people
Need of Tariff Legislation.
There is before you the completion of
permanent tariff law, the word per
manent" being used to distinguish it from
the emergency act which is the law to-
day, cannot too strongly urge an early
completion of this necessary legislation.
1t is needed to stabilize our industry at
home; it is essential to make more definite
our trade relations abroad. More, it is
vital to the preservation of many of our
own industries which contribute SO nota-
bly, to the very life blood of our nation.
EThere is now, and there always will be,
"a storm of conflicting opinion about any
tariff revision. We can not go far wrong
when we base our tariffs on the policy of
preserving the productive activities which
enhance employment and add to our ma
tional prosperity.
Must Be Exchange of Trade.
Again comes the reminder that we
must not be unmindful of world condi-
tons, that peoples are struggling for in
dustrial rehabilitation and that we can
not dwell in industrial and commercial ex-
clusion and at the same time do the just
thing in aiding world reconstruction and
REIMBURSEMENT. We do not seek selfish
aloofness, and we could not profit by it,
ha M
cessity of buying wherever we sell, and
the permanency of trade lies in it's accept
able exchanges. We cannot sell to others
who do not produce. nor can we buy I'M
less we produce at home.
Nations Duty to Itself.
Everything relating to trade, among
ourselves and among nations, has been
expanded, excessive, inflated, abnormal,
andsthe is a madness in finance which
nosAmerican policy alone will cure. We
AREA. creditor nation, not by normal proc
esses, but made so by war. 1t is not an
unworthy Selfshness to seek to save our
selves when the processes of that saliva
ton are not only not denied to others,
but commended to them. We seek to I'M
dermine for others no industry by which
the undermining of none of our own
which make for employment and MAIN
tanned activities.
b Every contemplation magnifies the diff
culty Oh ldrlH leSlSlallon, out the neceS-
sity of the revision is magnified with it.
Doubtless we are justified in seeking
more flexible policy than we have pro-
vided heretofore. l hope way will be
found to make for fiexibility and elas-
ITCHY, so that rates may be adjusted to
meet unusual and changing conditions
which cannot be accurately anticipated
/ know of no manner in which to effect
this fiexibility other than the extension
of the powers of the tariff commission
a
and kwholly just administration of the
law.
y am not unmindful of the constitutional
difficulties. These can be met by giving