Tariff in Bad Weather
TARIFF IN BAD WEATHER IV/f R. SMOOT of Utah has not made these recent •*¦'¦*¦ warm days an occasion of idleness. Indeed, if reports can be accepted at face value, the Senator has worked as...
...But no sooner had the prize possession been brought out of the closet for an airing and needed repairs than it created almost as much consternation as is caused in the average household when daughter's last-yearmodel coat becomes a theme for debate...
...the vital importance of world trade, and the relation this bears to political activity...
...It was recommended warmly as the foundation of our prosperity, and even Democratic speakers treated it deferentially, almost affectionately...
...Simply that there will soon be foisted upon tile Senate the duty of "revising" the tariff reform drawn up and approved by the House...
...Thus far the House has toiled diligently and obligingly, but to the dismay of everyone else...
...That the first has not been amused is obvious, though what he may do about it must be left to the imagination...
...It may be that we need more monographs, from obliging and studious universities...
...Possibly we are merely waiting to hear from Senator Smoot...
...But there is almost enough in them to justify his remark that "as little as the farmer will get out of the farm relief measure, he will get still less out of the tariff bill...
...But the net loss to all farmers would be $20,856,147...
...Time was when the opinions and decisions taken by Congress remained practically aloof from concerns with the world at large—a fortunate situation, to be found nowhere else...
...304...
...The University of Wisconsin, famed for assistance rendered the farmer, appears as the author of a monograph not yet published in entirety, which summarizes the situation in detail...
...With that document nobody has been satisfied, apart from those several interested parties who made a good impression at committee hearings...
...If holes can be punched into the proposed tariff tapestry without leaving the Middle-West, they are as nothing compared with the bombardment from abroad...
...It would seem, however, that Democratic attacks upon this last are to be directed chiefly at the provisions which extend the rate-fixing authority of the President and the Tariff Commission...
...Late last summer nothing looked simpler than the tariff...
...and since Mr...
...Now all has changed...
...Smoot is interested in sugar, the moment is trying and poignant...
...We do not know if Senator Furnifold Simmons, North Carolina's ranking minority member of the Finance Committee, has digested these and the numerous other figures which Wisconsin has compiled...
...Here one meets the beet-sugar-growers delegation...
...But the liveliness with which the topic has been discussed abroad draws one's attention to the comparative novelty of two factors in modern American economic life...
...And the reason...
...One extract from this work is particularly enlightening, because it estimates the total value of what the House has done for the husbandmen of the nation: "The cost of the proposed tariff rate on sugar to the farm population would be $79,773,120 (total farm consumption, 2,492,910,000 pounds) or an increased cost of $19,195,407 due to the proposed new rate...
...Much has been said at the congress of the International Chamber of Commerce, meeting in Amsterdam, that will never creep into print, and even the published remarks are too recent to be digested as yet...
...We have attained and must conserve a world position, and so the tariff and similar matters must be regulated almost as much with a view to pleasing the manufacturer in Lyons, France, as to comforting the manufacturer in Arcadia, Delaware...
...Indeed, if reports can be accepted at face value, the Senator has worked as assiduously as lesser men labor at golf or the proper computation of beverage ingredients...
...Assuming, again, that the entire increased tariff rate would find its way back to the cane and beet growers of continental United States, they would benefit to the extent of $58,916,973 annually under the new tariff...
...Meanwhile, however, we are hearing from nearly everybody else, and the melody— unlike sugar—is not sweet...
...Just why one cannot tell, but so the matter stands...
...No subject has suddenly assumed such proportions, or offered such unlimited opportunities for research, as the product which adds so much to oatmeal and the waist line...
Vol. 10 • July 1929 • No. 12
