duction of various articles at home and abroad, and set in order for the benefit of Congress as much data as possible bearing upon the whole question. Senator Beveridge introduced a bill to this effect, and the National Manufacturers' Association sent representatives to Washington who used their best efforts to secure the passage of such a measure, but without avail. It was at length proposed that the President should create under one of the Cabinet departments a tariff bureau to be manned by statisticians and experts already in the Government employ, who should lose no time in proceeding to collate information for Congressional use. This idea, also, was rejected by the Republican leaders of the two houses. As a result, however, of the agitation for a commission or a tariff bureau, Congress took a less decisive step, and the Ways and Means Committee of the House was instructed to proceed at once in its own way, employing experts to investigate at home and abroad, holding public hearings and proceeding during the recess of Congress to get ready for the special session of next March or April. In accordance with that decision, the Ways and Means Committee sent men abroad and proceeded to deal in a preliminary way with the making of a new tariff bill. The hearings last month attracted wide attention and stimulated tariff discussion in the press. The steel men were especially prominent as witnesses on cost of production at home and abroad. The Washington. In the earlier hearings before the Hearings at Ways and Means Committee it was natural enough that various manufacturers' organizations and protected interests should be prepared to present their views and to argue as strongly as possible against any radical lowering of the protection wall. As a consequence of some of the testimony at these public hearings the country received the impression that the Ways and Means Committee intended to maintain the present Dingley tariff without many changes of a material sort. In the face of this impression there appeared an article from the pen of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, taking the ground that manufacturers of iron and steel had outgrown the need of protection, because such wares could be made in this country in larger quantities and at lower costs per unit than anywhere else. Mr. Carnegie had for so long a time been regarded as the foremost beneficiary of the American protective tariff that his arguments against high duties on steel made a decided sensation. His position was not in accord with that which certain other iron and steel men, notably Mr. Charles M. Schwab, took before the Ways and Means Committee when they testified on the cost of production. But Mr. Carnegie's article at least aroused a discussion that made it certain that the iron and steel schedule would be revised upon the merits of the case from the standpoint of the public welfare. Prospects of Bill. It was For a time the feeling against the an "Honest Ways and Means Committee, even within the Republican party, was of such a nature as to threaten to discredit the committee's work in advance, and to endanger the control of its own bill on the floor of the House next spring. known that Mr. Taft, as prospective President, had taken a very strong position in favor of what was called a thorough and honest revision, and that he had privately threatened to veto any tariff bill which should come short of his views as to what was required in consistency with the promises of the Republican national platform. It was charged that Speaker Cannon was in favor of the least possible tariff revision, and that Mr. Payne, of New York, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, closely supported by Mr. Dalzell, who represents the Pittsburg district, was hostile to any revision except a nominal and perfunctory one. Mr. Taft, however, early in December, made a visit to Washington, and had a conference not only A NEW PORTRAIT OF MR. CANNON, WHO WILL BE RE-ELECTED SPEAKER OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. with Speaker Cannon, but with the Republicar. members of the Ways and Means Committee. As a result of these conferences it was announced that the friends of Mr. Taft and of tariff revision would not oppose Mr. Cannon's re-election as Speaker of the next Congress. And it was further said that Mr. Payne and Mr. Dalzell satisfied Mr. Taft that the committee was preparing to do thorough work along the line of Republican promises. The Republican point of view is that tariff rates should protect the American standard of wage payment and should not ignore the view that it is desirable for this country to maintain prosperous and diversified manufactures. The prospect is that there will be party harmony on the new tariff. Outlook. We publish on page 39 an inMr. lawney on the Tarif structive letter from the Hon. James A. Tawney, of Minnesota, chairman of the great Committee on Appropriations, as respects the present outlook for tariff revision. Mr. Tawney was one of the sub-committee that drafted the present Dingley tariff in 1897. As head of the Appropriations Committee he is no longer serving on the committee over which Mr. Payne presides, but his position on tariff questions is very influential. His own State, and the entire Northwest, have demanded positive and sharp changes in the existing tariff schedule. Mr. Tawney expresses confidence in the committee now at work, and evidently believes that the Republican bill as finally Copyright, 1908, by Harris & Ewing. HON. CHAMP CLARK, OF MISSOURI. (Leader of the Democratic minority in the House and active in the tariff work of the Ways and Means Committee.) shaped and presented to a Republican caucus of the House will in a general way accord with the views that Mr. Taft represents. Mr. Miles We also publish on page 82 of as a Tariff the present number an article on Critic. methods of tariff revision, from the pen of Mr. H. E. Miles, the energetic chairman of the National Manufacturers' Committee on the Tariff. Mr. Miles has devoted an immense amount of time and effort to the subject of tariff revision, and has convinced his great association that the only proper way to deal with the subject is through a permanent commission of experts. His criticisms of the present method of tariffmaking are exceedingly sharp, but they must. be taken as reflecting not upon the members of the Ways and Means Committee but rather upon the system. As a matter of fact, Mr. Miles' own efforts at Washington last winter helped not a little to induce the Ways and Means Committee to employ experts and to make more thorough preparation than would otherwise have been made for presenting a bill to the new Congress next spring. However sound may be Mr. Miles' views on a tariff commission, he doubtless knows that the present year is to give us a revised tariff at the hands of the Ways and Means Committee without any commission as a preliminary step. When the new tariff is adopted and put into operation it may be possible to persuade Congress to establish a tariff bureau in the Department of Commerce, with a view to the constant study and compilation of facts, both foreign and domestic, bearing upon tariff matters. Canada We also publish a very interest and Our ing and pointed contribution Tariff. from a valued correspondent in Canada (see page 85), who presents some views upon the tariff relations of the Dominion and the United States that people on this side of the line ought not to forget. The existence of an artificial tariff barrier across the North American continent is distinctly harmful. The ideal arrangement would be that of a complete commercial union. There are now powerful private interests on both sides of the line that prefer protection for the sake of their own monopolistic relation to local markets; but free trade between the United States and Canada would be greatly for the advantage of both countries. At present there is no possibility of success for AN ILLUSTRATION FROM THE TEN USED BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IN HIS MESSAGE TO CONGRESS SHOWING WASTE DUE TO FOREST DESTRUCTION IN CHINA. a project so complete in its statesmanship, but every successive revision of the tariff should contemplate a future freedom of exchange across the international boundary line. Free Canadian Products. At the present moment we have Forest an especial need of free access to the almost unlimited forests of our northern neighbor. With any sort of proper regulation Canada can maintain her forests through the generations to come, and yet permit the harvesting of enough timber every year to supply the demand for white paper as well as a great part of the North American demand for ordinary sawn lumber. At former times of tariff rearrangement our lumber interests have secured protection against the products of Canadian forests, but the time has come when we should withdraw every artificial encouragement that fosters the danger of a rapid destruction of our now scanty timber belts. The lumberman need not fear that prices will become low. The day of cheap lumber has gone by forever. But it should be equally true that the day of high premiums upon the destruction of our forests should also end at once. The danger of losing our most necessary tracts of mountain woodland has been realized by the experts for several years, but it is only now that the general public has begun to comprehend the situation. We Are Losing Our Forests. Last month the President's commission on the conservation of natural resources held a meeting in Washington, and many governors, as well as various other influential citizens of different States, attended the session. Governor Guild, of Massachusetts, stated that within five years the White Mountain forests would all be gone unless the pending bill for the creation of a White Mountain forest reserve should become a law. His views were supported by the most practical and competent. experts. Mr. James S. Whipple, the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner of New York, also stated last month, as respects conditions in that State, that the denudation of hills at the headwaters of the Hudson had so affected the flow of that great stream that in its upper stretches last summer the water was only two inches deep. New York City is entering upon the most costly water-supply project in the history of the world,-an undertaking that will cost as much as the original estimates of the expense of the Panama Canal. While continuing to develop the Croton watershed for immediate uses, New York is beginning work upon a water system that will cost from $150,000,000 to $200,000,000, and that will bring what is estimated to be a practically exhaustless supply from a series of dams and reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains. But Mr. Whipple shows that the success of this project is practically dependent upon the preservation of the timbered character of the mountain slopes from which the water is to be gathered; and he declares that a proper forestry policy is the only thing that can assure to the great metropolis its future drinking-water. Mr. Roosevelt on Forests. The most powerful passages in President Roosevelt's message to Congress last month,-all the more impressive because this is the last of his annual messages,-described the terrible consequences that have followed the destruction of forests in China. The President makes it plain that the cutting away of the Chinese mountain forests has continued up to a very recent period, and that the devastation has finally led to such violence of erosion in the rainy period of the year that the soil has been washed away, and reafforestation has become impossible. It is not a false or idle alarm that President Roosevelt sounds, and it will be criminal stupidity if we neglect any longer to adopt a forest policy based upon principles of intelligence and patriotism. The Need of Eastern Reserves. by the Senate last year, but was held up in the House. Two years ago the House Committee on Agriculture was unanimous in reporting the bill favorably. But now Mr. Cannon has reconstituted the Committee on Agriculture, and the bill is blocked. Everybody in the United States who has considered the subject would seem to be favorable to the prompt passage of this bill, with the exception of Speaker Cannon and several members of his Committee on Agriculture. The press is unanimous for it, and it would be immediately passed by the House with an overwhelming majority if it were allowed to come to a vote. Here we have a measure of urgent necessity, carefully thought out, supported on the loftiest motives by all who have thoroughly considered the.subject, urged in messages by the President, advocated repeatedly before the Committee on Agriculture by governors or their representatives from many States, involving the welfare of the country for centuries to come, and yet the whole business is held up because, under the rules of the House, Speaker Cannon is in a position to keep the House from voting upon the question. Few can even faintly appreciate the pressure upon Mr. Cannon as Speaker and upon Mr. Tawney as chairman of the Appropriations Committee to spend public money far beyond Uncle Sam's inBut they must help save the forests. The greatest immediate demand is for the passage of the bill creating the White Mountain and Appalachian forest reserves in the eastern part of the United States. The bill was passed come. JIM TAWNEY TO JOE CANNON: "Say, but these things are almighty fine. If we only had the coin we'd buy 'em all for Sammy." From the Journal (Minneapolis). |