THE ROLL CALL: ALDRICH BILL EXPRESED BY EXPERTS
THE ROLL CALL ON MEN AND MEASURES Aldrich Bill Exposed by Experts WHEN the tariff bill passed the Senate, it was generally understood that it embodied tariff revision upward. Aldrich and his...
...This is one of the reductions which made Mr...
...That duty is "reduced" by .05 cents in the pending bill...
...These are the statistics used by the Finance Committee in their tabulation and which Aldrich claimed were the latest figures which were representative of normal trade conditions...
...In the second column are set down the rates that are increased, the imports and revenues under them...
...Fordney "sweat blood"—wherefore Cannon put him on the conference...
...On one-third of schedule "I," the cotton goods schedule, the Dingley rates are increased 22 per cent...
...There are 31 millions of imports under it...
...Schedule "A" embraces chemicals, oils and paints...
...Out of 696 millions of imports under all the schedules, the bill as passed by the Senate leaves 450 millions subject to the Dingley rates of duty...
...On schedule "H," spirits, wines, and other beverages, there is a net increase of 25 per cent...
...The total imports in schedule "G," which embraces agricultural products and provisions, amounted in all to about 63 millions...
...The net result is an increase of 8 per cent, in the schedule as a whole...
...This "reduction" is too small to be measurable to the consumer and if he were to receive the benefit of it in a corresponding reduction of the price of sugar, his benefit in a year, according to the average per capita consumption of sugar, would amount to the princely sum of four cents...
...The value of the total imports under this schedule in 1907 was $21,656,000...
...By simply adding up each column you have the final result as to each schedule and all the schedules...
...On this schedule taken as a whole the increase amounts to practically 6 per cent...
...As to 32 millions, or more than threefourths of these imports, the Senate bill re-enacts the Dingley rates unchanged...
...In the third column, are the rates that are decreased and the imports and the revenues under them...
...The increases in all the schedules apply to 21.5 of the dutiable imports and 23 per cent, of the revenue...
...The Dingley duties applying to nearly 28 millions of these imports are re-enacted in the Senate bill without change...
...On 51 millions of these imports the Dingley rates are re-enacted in the Aldrich bill...
...On 10 millions of the balance the rates are increased on the average of 47 per cent...
...The tariff is composed of fourteen schedules, lettered from "A" to "N," inclusive...
...It is an important schedule and one that should be subjected to sweeping reductions...
...For the purposes of the calculation the statistics of imports for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, are .taken as the basis...
...On nearly 6 millions of imports the duties are increased on the average about 61 per cent, above the Ding-ley rates...
...On 13 millions, the duties are increased 35 per cent, above the Dingley rates while on 28 millions they are reduced 26 per cent...
...Schedule "E," which embraces sugar, molasses and manufactures thereof, also shows the character of "reductions" which have been allowed by Aldrich and his "associates...
...On about a million and a half of imports the duties are increased about 30 per cent, while on the remaining two millions there is a decrease of less than 28 per cent...
...Schedule "M," embracing pulps, and books, by reason of the fight made by the publishers of the country for free pulp and free print paper, and resulting in free pulp and a third reduction in news print paper, shows an average reduction on the whole schedule of 2.4 per cent...
...In schedule "C," the metal schedule, of the total 65 millions of imports, 24 millions remain subject to the Dingley rates...
...In schedule "D," wood and manufactures of wood, of which the total imports are less than 25 millions, there are reductions affecting about two-thirds of the schedule...
...On all the rest of the schedule, except the insignificant sum of $45,000, the rates of the Dingley law are re-enacted...
...The value of imports and the revenues afford a measure of the relative importance of the rates in the several columns...
...This is Aldeich's answer to the demand of the country for free lumber...
...Schedule "L," silks and silk goods, is advanced, on the whole, 16 per cent...
...So, as soon as the Senate passed the bill, he took a copy of it to the government's great statistical bureau under President Taft's Secretary of Commerce and Labor and had that bureau make a tabulation which would show mathematically what Aldrich had done to the tariff...
...The net result as to the whole schedule is a reduction—a "reduction" for which great claims are made—amounting to less than two per cent., a reduction so small that it cannot possibly reach the consumer in the form of reduced prices...
...This does not take into account the new duty on mercerization, which it has been estimated will cost the people $25,000,000 a year to be paid mostly to the cotton goods manufacturers of New England...
...Schedule "J" of the Dingley law, embracing flax, hemp, jute, and manufactures thereof, is the Dingley law re-enacted as to 75 per cent, of the imports and the increases on the rest of the schedule slightly over-balance the decreases, so that the net result in this schedule is the substantial re-enactment of the Dingley law with a slight increase...
...For the purposes of this tabulation the thousands of items in the tariff schedule are classified and tabulated in three columns...
...Schedule "N," sundries, shows a net increase of 11.15 per cent above the Dinglev rates...
...In the first column are set down the rates that are not changed from the Dingley law, the value of imports under them and the revenue collected...
...The Aldrich bill re-enacts the Dingley duties on $21,540,000 of the imports...
...The net result is an average increase in schedule "A" of 7.51 per cent, above the Dingley rates...
...This "reduction" in schedule "E" applies to about one-half of one per cent, of the importations under that schedule and amounts to only about 3 per cent, on that to which it applies...
...On less than 3% millions of imports, the rates in this schedule are reduced about 51 per cent...
...Aldrich and his "associates" continued to claim, however,—and without offering any facts in support of their claims,—that the duties were either not increased or that the increase could not be shown...
...The net result on the whole schedule is a decrease that amounts to less than one-half of one per cent...
...The reductions in the schedule, average less than 10 per cent., however, and are in no sense a menace to the interests of the lumber trust...
...Schedule "K," the outrageous woolen schedule of the Dingley law, is re-adopted as a whole in the pending bill, perpetuating the monopoly of the woolen trust,—to result soon in an increase of one^fourth in the price of clothing...
...The decreases apply to less than 14 per cent, of the total imports, yielding less than 6 per cent, of the total revenue...
...On the whole bill the increases above the Dingley rates, apparent from the face of the bill amount to more than 13 millions of dollars in revenue and represent a net increase in tariff duties of practically 5 per cent...
...The total value of imports under this schedule in 1907 was, in round numbers, 41 million dollars...
...Schedule "F," the tobacco schedule of the Dingley law, is re-enacted bodily...
...Space will not permit a detailed analysis of this interesting tabulation to be given here...
...It is substantially a re-enactment of schedule "B" of the Dinelev law...
...The most that can be given is the final results by schedules...
...The balance of imports under this schedule, of $116,000, represent the total amount of refined white sugar that found a way to market in this country in spite of a practically prohibitive duty of 1.95 cents per pound under the Dingley law...
...These figures can take no account of the many important increases produced by new definitions, new classifications, new duties and new provisions for valuation which, together, will result in enormous increases which cannot be reduced to mathematical estimates...
...The Country Demanded and the Republican Party Fairly Promised that the Tariff Would be Revised Downward on the Basis of the Difference in Cost of Production, Here and Abroad...
...On the remaining one million there is a reduction of 30 per cent...
...When this tabulation was completed, Senator La Follette presented it in the Senate and had it printed as a Senate Document and he also laid a copy of it before the President, explaining that it was the work of an impartial bureau of his administration and that it showed just how and where and how much the tariff would be increased if he should approve the Aldrich bill...
...This proportion represents practically 65 per cent, of the total dutiable imports and over 71 per cent, of the total tariff revenue...
...But Senator La Follette did not purpose to allow any doubt upon this point to remain in anybody's mind, at least not if the mind was open and capable of comprehending simple arithmacic...
...Schedule "B" embraces the duties on earths, earthenware, glass, glassware, etc...
Vol. 1 • July 1909 • No. 30
