OCR Text |
Show to the wool tariff alone there can be no possible doubt that the tariff should be swept away. But many readers will remember that in one of his terse speeches, when a candidate for president, Benjamin Benja-min Harrison bade the people remember that cheap chthes meant a cheap man. By it, of course, ho meant that the reduction in the price of clothing meant the reduction of the price of labor. Taking that view, it is easy to see that sometimes it would be much easier for poor man to pay $25 for a suit of clothes than it would be at another, for him to pay $20. That makes it reasonably plain that it is impossible to reach a just conclusion conclu-sion on the question without considering its bearings bear-ings on other industries, and that the average congressman con-gressman is not capable of doing without first making ma-king an exhaustive study of the whole question, which the average congressman has neither the time nor the inclination to do. To that must be added the study of the cost of manufacturing woolen goods. "What does the suit weigh, and is the adance of $5 on the suit all due to the tariff I What is paid the men and women who manufacture the wool into cloth! Again, were the tarift eliminated from wool, and vast amounts were to be shipped in from pauper lands, what effect would that have upon this country! From the foregoing the average man can see that the tariff question is one that requires the best thought of able men, and not only the best but the constankoughlLih8tJLciinoLJ?J?0P'y handled by congressmen who have never given it more than superficial attention, and who are sure of their official places for only a few months. The wise thing is the tariff commission, made up of high priced and able men who will devote all their time to it and who from time to time may submit their conclusions In form which congress can understand. ' " SCHEDULER. ! The Outlook discusses schedule K. which is the ' section of the tariff which determines the tariff on wool. It gives the arguments on both .sides, which, reduced to a single proposition, is thst 5.000.000 people Would be greatly distressed were the tsriff " ' eliminated while on the other hand approximately 90.000.tXX) people -Would be benefited. Hence, the Octlvk wants an enlightened revision of schedule K. because it believes in the greatest good to the greatest number. If that is all there ia in the argument, then the house In reducing the tariff on waol about CO per eent i all wrong and Mr. Bryan, who wants it eliminated nltortherr-is entirely rijht. Thus the cMhiers estimate tnat because of the tariff wool the suit of ilotbes which under nat-tml nat-tml rrmJilions would nt She eonnHincr $20 now e.bts dim tJ3. As an abatract" proposition confined |