Show A TWOEDGED SWORD The Imposition of Duties Upon Canadian Cars Entering the United States Special to TIE HERALD Examiner Dispatch1 WASHINGTON May 9The hearing given yesterday Secretary Windoin and Assistant Assis-tant Secretary Ticheuoron tie subject of assessing duties on Canadian cars coming into this country will probably settle the matter in favorof continuing the present free interchange without duties i The railroad men who appeared were all opposed to Secretary Failchilds order imposing im-posing such duty They were Benjamin Flagler representing the Michigan Central railroad General O L Spaulding representing repre-senting the Chicago Grand Trunk and D V Bell and Henry Russell of Detroit counsel for the Michigan Central These gentlemen stated that the exemption of Canadian built cars from duty when engaged en-gaged in international traffic had beenthe practice of the treasury department from 1SC9 up to last January when Secretary Fairchild had directed the assessment of duty on certain new cars which entered this country at Detroit The day following this direction the secretary ordered its suspension until further examination by the department but instructed the collectors to keep account ac-count of the number of cars that entered and the amount of duty to which they wonld be liable The gentleman argued that the old practice had become in effect the law of the land and that under it thousands of dollars had been spent in building up the carrying trade botween the east and the northwest They admitted that there was no statute and nothing in the treaty of Washington which authorized the exemption from duty But the practice they argued had been sanctioned and it I should not be abolished unless by congressional congres-sional enactment To enforce the collection of the duty would be a positive embargo npon commerce com-merce and would render worthless millions of dollars worth of property It would not benefit American car builders because it would lead to retaliation frOm Canada There are the gentleman stated more American cars used in Dominion traffic in Canada than there are Canadian cars in domestic traffic in the United States |