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to th' inspictor an' whisper: 'I've got a few bicuspids that I picked up abroad. Be a good fellow and let me through.' No sir, teeth are free.

"What other nicissities, says ye? Well, there's sea moss, newspapers, nuts, an' nux vomica. They've removed th' jooty on Pulu. I didn't think they'd go that far. Ye know what Pulu is, iv coorse, an' I'm sure ye'll be glad to know this refreshin' bev'rage or soap is on th' free list. An' cannary bur-rd seed is fhree. Lookin' down th' list I see that divvy-divvy is free also. But there are other items, mind ye. Here's some of them: Apatite, hog bristles, wurruks iv art more thinn twinty years old, kelp, marshmallows, life boats, silk worm eggs, stilts, skeletons, turtles, an' leeches. Th' new tariff bill puts these family commodyties within th' reach iv all. An' yes, opium is on th' free list. Th' tariff bill wouldn't be complete without that there item. But it ought to read: 'Opyum f'r smokin' while readin' th' tariff bill.' Ye can take this sterlin' piece of lithrachoor to a bunk with ye an' light a ball iv hop. Befure ye smoke up p'raps ye can't see where th' tariff has been rejooced. But afther ye've had a long dhraw it all becomes clear to ye. Ye'er worries about th' children's shoes disappear an' ye see ye'ersilf floatin' over a purple sea, in ye're private yacht, lulled by th' London Times, surrounded be wurruks iv art more thin twinty years old, atin' marshmallows an' canary bur-rd seed, while the turtles an' leeches frisk on th' binnacle.

"Well, sir, if nobody else has read th' debates on th' tariff bill, I have. Th' walls iv Congress has resounded with th' loftiest sintiments. Hinnery Cabin Lodge in accents that wud melt the heart iv th' coldest many facthrer iv button shoes has pleaded f'r freedom f'r th' skins iv cows. I'm sorry this appeal wasn't succissful. Th' hide iv th' pauperized kine iv Europe will have to cough up at th' custom house before they can be convarted into brogans.34 This pathriotic result was secured be th' gallant Sinitor fr'm Texas. He's an ardint free thrader, mind ye. He's almost a slave to th' principles iv th' Dimmycratic party. But he's no blamed bigot. He can have principles an' lave thim alone. An' I want to tell ye, me frind, that whin it comes to distributin' th' honors f'r this reform iv th' tariff, don't fail to throw a few flowers at th' riprisentatives iv our small but gallant party. It was a fine thing to see thim standin' be th' battle cry iv our grand old organyzation.

"Says th' Sinitor fr'm Louisyanny: 'Louisyanny, th' proudest jool in th' dyadim iv our fair land, remains thrue to th' honored

It is prosaic to spoil Mr. Dooley's figure by stating that he is wrong on this point. Hides were admitted free of duty by the Payne-Aldrich bill.

teachin's iv our leaders. Th' protective tariff is an abomynation. It is crushin' out th' lives iv our people. Wan iv th' worst parts is th' tariff on lathes. Fellow sinitors, as long as one dhrop iv pathriotic blood surges through me heart, I will raise me voice again a tariff on lathes, onless,' he says, 'this dhread implyment iv oppressyon is akelly used,' he says, 'to protict th' bland an' beautiful molasses if th' State iv me birth,' he says.

"I am heartily in sympathy with th' sinitor fr'm Louisyanny,' says th' Sinitor fr'm Virginya. 'I loathe th' tariff. Fr'm me arliest days I was brought up to look on it with pizenous hathred. At many a convintion ye cud hear me whoopin' agin' it. But if there is such a lot iv this monsthrous iniquity passin' around, don't Virginya get none? Gintlemen, I do not ask, I demand rights f'r me commonwealth. I will talk here ontil July fourth, nineteen hundred an' eighty-two, agin' th' proposed hellish tax on feather beds onless somethin' is done f'r th' tamarack bark iv old Virginya.'

"A sinitor: 'What's it used f'r?'

"Th' sinitor fr'm Virginya: 'I do not quite know. It is ayether a cure f'r th' hives or enthers largely into th' manny facture iv carpet. slippers. But there's a frind of mine who makes it an' he needs the money.'

""Th' argymints iv th' Sinitor fr'm Virginya are onanswerable,' says Sinitor Aldhrich. 'Wud it be agreeable to me Dimmycratic colleague to put both feather beds an' his what-ye-call-it in th' same item?'

"In such circumstances,' says th' Sinitor fr'm Virginya, 'I would be foorced to waive me almost insane prejudice again' th' hellish docthrines iv th' distinguished Sinitor fr'm Rhode Island,' says he.

"An' so it goes, Hinnessy. Nivir a sordid wurrud, mind ye, but ivrything done on th' fine old principle iv give an' take."

"Well," says Mr. Hinnessy, "what difference does it make? Th' foreigner pays th' tax, anyhow."

"He does," said Mr. Dooley, "if he ain't turned back at Ellis Island."

169. Tricks of Tariff Making 35

A superficial comparison of two tariff bills gives very little clue to the differences between them. An accurate count of the number of increases and decreases in the later, as compared with the earlier bill, throws no light upon the larger question of whether the revision

"The evidence presented in this reading is all taken from "The Tariff of 1909," by H. Parker Willis, in the Journal of Political Economy, XVII, 597-611.

was an upward or a downward revision. This method is important only because of its suggestion of a method for proving to superficial observers that there has been an upward or a downward revision. Rea! changes and their effects can be determined only by examining rates on particular commodities in view of a knowledge of all the conditions surrounding the production of these commodities. This can be well illustrated by reference to the tariff of 1909.

The statement has been repeatedly made that this tariff substantially reduced the level of duties. The conclusion is established by the arithmetical process of counting advances and reductions. It fails, however, to take into consideration the fact that most of the duties reduced were upon commodities which are produced in this country for export. In such cases tariff duties are purely nominal. They can in the very nature of things furnish no protection, because there is nothing to protect against. On the contrary the increases were upon goods which needed, or at any rate could profit by, advances. To take a few illustrations: In Schedule A the duties on most acids were cut, as well as upon ammonia, borax, and ether. On drugs, however, which were in position to profit, substantial advances were made. In Schedule B the rates were reduced on firebrick, marble, onyx, granite, and other non-portable articles. On pumice stone and certain grades of glass, duties, however, were raised. In Schedule C the reductions in nominal duties were very large, that on iron ore dropping from 40 to 15 cents. Yet upon the more expensive and finished metal products there were material advances. The best examples in the bill, however, are contained in Schedule G, dealing with agricultural products, of which we export very large surpluses. Neglecting the obvious facts of the grain trade, Congress tried to give the impression of great care for the farmer. Thus on broom corn, which had been free, a duty of $3 a ton was imposed; the rate on buckwheat flour was raised from 20 to 25 per cent; on oats from 15 to 20 cents a bushel. Hops were advanced from 12 to 15 cents a pound. For some obscure reason the duty on cabbages was dropped from 3 to 2 cents. Nursery stock and fruits received a general raise. Congress, of course, did not overlook the opportunity of dealing the usual "blow at the beef trust" by reducing the duty which it did not need.

But many devices much more subtle than these found their way into the bill. Many changes were made in the unit of measurement for customs purposes. Electric lighting carbons, for instance, which had been 90 cents per hundred, were now made 65 cents per hundred feet on certain grades and 35 cents on other grades, the only kind imported in practice being dutiable at the higher rate. A provision

in the cotton schedule that in counting threads, upon the number of which the rate of duty depended, "all the warp and filling threads" should be included, operated practically to double the duties upon some classes of goods, in so much as, under the former method of counting, "double yarns," in which the thread is twisted together out of two or more yarns, had been counted as a single thread. The enormous concession made to the public by the reduction of the tariff on sugar by one-twentieth of a cent a pound, a reduction which could have no influence on price, was the mask for changing the method of weighing sugar, which in itself amounted to a substantial increase in duty.

These examples by no means cover the act. In fact it is doubtful whether all the tricks in the bill will ever be discovered. However, they are typical of the kinds of tricks that are incorporated in the American tariff bill.

J. THE SCIENTIFIC REVISION OF THE TARIFF 170. Producers' Costs and Tariff Duties 36

BY WILLIAM C. REDFIELD

In the Republican platform of 1908 appeared the following words: "In all tariff legislation the true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries."

It is a great pity that those words were printed only in the English language. It is a pity that they were not translated into Japanese, that they might adorn the cabs of the 720 American locomotives in Japan; and into Chinese, that those in Manchuria who wear American cottons might know how self-sacrificing the makers were in selling them to them. It is a pity that they were not translated into Hindu, that the stokers of the Calcutta electric-light works might know how generous was the American firm that sold them their apparatus.

But since the difference in the cost of production is said to be such that we need protection against the manufacturers abroad, let us look more closely at those words. Speaking from a manufacturer's standpoint, I venture to think it can be shown that this statement of the Republican platform has these definite characteristics. 1) It involves certain contradictions, well known to manufacturers, which destroy its force. 2) It assumes the existence Adapted from The New Industrial Day, 81-102, 120, 122, 127, 130-131. Copyright by the Century Co. (1911).

36

of facts which do not exist. 3) It may involve such discrimination against some American manufacturers and in favor of some foreign manufacturers as is certainly unjust. 4) It ignores the nature of cost and the nature of competition, and, taken on its face, calls for the removal of the duties on many American manufactures. 5) It has worked grave injustice to our poor people and disaster to many American manufacturers.

These things I believe at the end of twenty-five years' manufacturing experience. I have found it possible, and we all know hundreds of American manufacturers have found it possible, to compete in the markets of the world. How does it happen that in a quotation recently made for machinery to a mine in Japan the American price was $215 less than the English price. Last year I was in the city of Tokyo, and a friend who was with me took a large contract from the Japanese Imperial State Railways, in open competition with Germany and England for several million dollars' worth of locomotives. That gentleman, at the locomotive shops of the Imperial Railways, was told, "We can make locomotives much. cheaper than you can in America." "Can you?" inquired my friend. "If so, let us get at the facts. What makes you think your locomotives cost less than ours?" "Why," the Japanese replied, “because we pay only one-fifth the wages to our men that you pay to yours." So they got the cost books, and discovered that the labor cost for locomotives on the same specifications was three and onehalf times greater in the Japanese than in the American shop. That is a perfectly normal fact.

Another illustration may be interesting. My agent in the city. of Calcutta one day called my attention to the shoes he was wearing. He said, "I paid $3.85 for those shoes." "Why," I said, "that is an American shoe." "Yes," he said, "I bought it here. It is the regular American $5 shoe."

I treasure as a souvenir a small, ordinary pencil. It has upon it the name of the American Lead Pencil Co. I bought it out of stock in the small town of Bandoeng, in central Java. I have in my home some men's toilet articles-shaving soap, etc., made in New Jersey. I bought them in Hongkong.

Yet we are told that though foreign manufacturers are handicapped by distance, time, and freight, we can not compete with them at home because we pay high wages. To end these illustrations, let me give a list taken at random from one export journal of American goods offered abroad for sale in open competition with Germany and Great Britain: "Ironmongery, fine tools, bicycles, sporting goods, lamps, razors, firearms, carriage makers' supplies,

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