Evening star., 1929-07-28
SENATE DUE TO SLASH
TARIFF RATES OF HOUSE
Undue Advantage of Friendly Atmos-
phere Taken by Farm Spokesman and
Extravagant Demands Followed.
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

BY MARK SULLIVAN.
THE Republican members of the
Senate finance committee are
writing what will be the first
4 draft of the Senate version of
the new tariff. It Is a guarded
process, properly so. But Washington
has q strong impression that the Senate
version of the bill will be lower than the
version the House already has passed.
If so. 1t will be departure from prec-
edent-the common rule Is for the
Senate to write higher duties than the
House. Likewise, it will be departure
from what was the universal expecta-
ton when the bill went to the Senate
Everybody believed the Senate would
preserve all the increases made by the
House-and add further increases Of its
own.
These defeated expectations comprise
the present stage of the tariff in it's en-
tirety. And the present stage is close to
the final phase OF curious evolution
that began about last January.
Early Tariff Intentions.
The early intentions and the early
program for this tariff revision divided
it into two parts. AS to farm products,
the revision was to be both broad and
high. It was to take in every farm
product and good many potential
farm products; as to height, the duties
on farm products were to be about
Wh@tever the spokesman of farmers
asked for.
With respect to commodities other
than agricultural, the early intention
and program was that the revision
should be strictly limited, that only
such commodities should be touched as
were in obvious and immediate need of
higher duties. The figure three" often
was used as the number of non-agricul-
tural schedules that would be revised.
That being the initial stage of
thought, what happened? What
brought about the rather different
course that was followed?
Spokesman Take Too Much Rope.
First of all, the spokesmen for farm
ers took too much rope. They took I'M
due advantage of an atmosphere that
was extravagantly friendly to them.
They demanded, for example, a tariff
on bananas-on the theory that if ba-
nanas were kept out of the country, or
made more expensive. people would eat
fruits grown In America The spokes-
men for farmers pushed the theory Of
protection farther than manufacturers
had ever pushed it. The farmer spokes-
men said, in effect, that not only should
every farm crop raised in America be
highly protected; they said further.
that even though commodity cannot
be raised in the. United States. q duty -
In several cases an exclusive duty
should be laid on it for the purpose of
causing Americans to consume Substi-
tuteS which can be raised here
One example of this kind of demand
was bananas. Another was jute. Jute
cannot be raised in the United States
Nevertheless. an official spokesman for
farmers demanded-and has repeated
the demand in the Senate hearings
within 10 days-that an exclusive tariff
should be placed on jute. The theory
is that If jute is kept out of the coun-
try. cotton will be used as a substitute
in the making of bagging. 1t is admitted
that bagging made of cotton will cost
more.
The lengths to which demands by
farmer spokesmen went created, so to
speak. an atmosphere of eXtravagant
demands all around atmosphere counts
much in tariff revisionD. The manu-
facturers. sensing the atmosphere.
rushed forward during last February
and March with insistence that the
revision on manufactured products
should not be 1imited-that it should
be a broad. general revision; and that
the duties should be high.
Group Fairly Restrained.
In that atmosphere the ways and
means committee the tariff writing
committee) of the Lower House went
to work. Considering that the atmos-
phere was what it was, the ways and
means committee was fairly restrained,
It called its work not tariff revision.
but tariff readjustment," and that
phrase appears as the official title Of
the committees documents. The ways
and means committee gave the farmers
almost as much. though not quite. as
the farmers spokesmen demanded,
and to do that was consistent with
what everybody 1ssented to as the pri-
mary purpose of the revision.
AS respects non-farming commodi-
ties, the ways and means committee
made a fair effort to hold the lid down.
The bill as written by the ways and
means committee was not greatly eX-
travagant, either as respects scope or
as respects height of duties, except in
few cases. :.
Perhaps the ways and means commit
tee did not make as strenuous an effort
as it might have made. It is now clear
that the committee did not make sufn-