Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-07-01
SEEN
HEARD
around the
NATIONAL
CAPITAL
By Carter Field \
BY Carter Field y

BY Carter Field y
Washington. - Congress is all
headed for big high tariff drive.
So far it has no head, no organiza-
ton. But that is bound to come. Up
to date it is an individual industry
and district situation. Some hun
dreds of different industries, which
compete with imported products,
are pounding away on their sena-
tors and representatives, insisting
that amendments to the tariff law
be passed. They want the rates on
their products boosted high enough
to make up for the increases in
cost of production since the present
rates were written, plus the in
creased costs to come when the
pending wages and hours legisla
ton is written into law.
For instance, take the manufac-
turers of women's shoes, up in Edith
Nourse Rogers Massachusetts dis
trict. Their principal foreign COM
petition comes from Czechoslovakia.
They had a duty of 20 per cent on
women's shoes. Some time back
they made case before the tariff
commission and succeeded in con-
vincing the commission so COM
pletely that the commission gave
them as big a boost as the law
would permit fifty per cent. This
made the duty on sewn women's
shoes 80 per cent.
But even this is not enough, even
for present conditions, to equalize
costs of production, the manufac-
turers say. Besides which, the
Czechs have been sending in ce-
mented instead of sewn shoes late
ly, and these have to pay only 20
per cent.
But when the new wages and
hours law goes into effect, they point
out, they will simply have to close
down unless the tariff is boosted
beyond the present legal capacity
of the tariff commission to raise it.
In short, they must have an act
of congress-.
1t Doesn't Happen
Politically speaking the idea of
putting through a bill to raise the
duty on shoes and shoes alone is
almost unthinkable. It simply does
not happen. Always there are more
representatives from districts which
buy shoes but do not make them
and who therefore are inclined to
vote against measure which would
have the effect of increasing the
cost of living for their constituents.
This apparently does not occur to
the shoe manufacturers. But it will
to the representatives of shoe man.
ufacturing districts before many
days pass. For the interesting part
of the situation is that shoes are
just one of about a hundred indus
tries which are worried to death by
the increased costs the wages and
hours bill is going to impose on
them.
All of them are screaming to their
friends on Capitol Hill that they will
have to close down when the wages
and hours bill goes into effect-un-
less they can get enough additional
tariff protection to deprive the for
eign manufacturers of this advan-
tage.
The late Representative William
P. Connery, of Massachusetts,, who
introduced the wages and hours bill
in the house, attempted to meet the
problem. His bill would bar goods
produced without regard for the
wages and hours restrictions of the
bill. The senate draft has the words
lin any state" after the word 'pro-
duction." Connery left these out.
But no one takes this seriously.
They think it would be impossible
to enforce, and they are certain his
idea will disappear before the final
passage of the bill.
Worries Treasury
One trouble about the gold situa-
tion-which is causing fareups on
Capitol Hill and gray hairs in the
Treasury departments that the
gold producing and holding nations
just don't believe us!
If they could be sure that Uncle
Sam was not going to reduce the
price of gold-in dollars-from thir-
ty-fve an ounce, the desire to sell
just might fall off amazingly. Of
course, it's true that gold is worth
little less to good many foreign
sellers than thirty-fve good Amer
lean dollars. They want the dol
lars, and, what with tariffs, and
quotas, and reciprocal trade treaties
and whatnot, it is not so easy for
them to get the dollars any other way
than by shipping gold for them.
But nobody can estimate what the
situation would really be if all the
gold producers and holders in the
world outside the United States
could be convinced in some way
that Roosevelt and Morgenthau
were not going to reduce the price.
At present, and for some months,
there has been an uneasy feeling
that the price would be reduced by
the worlds biggest gold buyer.
Hence there was the urge to get