Evening star., 1928-12-30
Tariff Act Revision
Called Complicated
BY HARDEN COLFAX.

Revision of the tariff act, in prepara-
ton for which hearings are scheduled
to start before the ways and means
committee a week from Monday, is a
much more complicated task than mere
ly jacking up few score rates of i'm
port duty and slashing down others.
Rates are important but so are the spe-
cial and administrative sections of tar
iff act. IT is proposed in the forthcom-
ing revision of the tariff, to pay par
ticular attention to matters other than
figures of customs duties to be levied
against imports Just as in the income
tax provisions OF a revenue act the
arrangement of the brackets Is fully as
important as the rates written therein,
so In tariff act the administrative
provisions vitally affect the amount of
revenue to be collected.
It Is a huge task which the ways and
means committee faces in rewriting the
tariff act. Yet it is not as heavy as
that involved in the tariff revision which
brought forth the present law in 1922.
In the latter case, the problem was one
Of translating competitive" bill, or a
tariff for revenue only written by the
Democrats in 1918, into protective
the prospective revision, the basis upon
which work will begin already is pro-
tective and the problem resolves itself
into one Of changes in figures and Ian
guage to meet new conditions which
have arisen since 1922.
But even a slight change in the figures
of rates, up or down, Is no child's play.
There are more than 1000 commodities
specially mentioned in the present tariff
act. In more than half or these cases
to change the duty on one commodity
will necessitate changes in dozen or
more of others Of related character.
just as pebble tossed into pool
causes ripples in every direction. Take
WOOL for example. II the rate OF duty
on raw wool were to be changed, 1t
would necessitate changes in every sim
gle item of the schedule following the
raw material, to translate the protec-
tive duty given wool into compen-
satory duty in every article made of
wool The protective duty on the fabri-
Gated merchandise-thaE is, the duty
considered sufficient to make up the
differences in labor and processing costs
here and abroad-might be sufficient,
but the change in the raw material rate
would necessitate an alteration OF the
compensatory duty, or the schedule
would be out of line. If the duty on
butter is to be changed, so must be
that on cream. And there are 1892
rates in the present tariff act, some
covering a number of items.
1t required 10 months to legislate on
| the 1922 tariff act. AS the compen-
satory differences are known factors.
and the new bill will be of the same
protective character as the old, the ap-
preaching task will be more simple.
Added to which Is the important fact
that the two major political parties now
are much more close to the same point
of view toward tariff policy than they
were seven years ago.
Many OF the administrative provi-
sions of the tariff act are obsolete.
Court rulings have affected others: ex-
perience has brought the Customs Bu-
| reau to a desire for change in more.
For one thing. the Treasury officials
will ask that the drawback provision
| be changed In the revision. BY this sec
ton there is a refund Of 80 per cent of
| the import duties when foreign COM
modities brought here for manufacture
are exported. In sugar, for illustration,
/ this runs into a large sum-$5, TIT 900
last year. Total drawbacks run about
$15,000.000 annually. The Treasury
wants a limitation of three years dur
ing which merchandise may be kept