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Show H THE TARIFF SITUATION. H No other question has been so persistent in American public H -life as the tariff. It has repeatedly been, the decisive issue in pres- Hj idential campaigns, has made and unmade statesmen and appears H no nearer a permanent settlement today than it did half a century H The sixty-second congress, whose first regular session is just H i now getting under way, was elected largely on the issue of the tar- H iff. The special session of this same congress was called into being H last spring for the purpose of enacting a tariff measure the late H reciprocity agreement with Canada which Canada herself rejected H i H III I III I III III' - - i - ' i . -. f at the first opportunity. Every indication at the present time is that this congress will give more attention to 'this vast economic conundrum than to any other single subject. That being probable, it may be worth while to get the essential facts in mind concerning the present status of the tariff question. It will be remembered that IMr. Taft was elected president three years ago last November upon a platform demanding a revision re-vision of the Dingle' tariff act. The general interpretation of that platform utterance was that it called for a revision downward As soon as he was safely inaugurated he called congress into special session to carry out this particular pledge of his campaign. The result was the Payne-Aldnch law which President Taft has .stoutly insisted was actually a downward revision of customs schedules, but which was generally taken by the country at largo as a betrajal of popular confidence and a failure to carry out the promise of the national "Republican platform. A little more than a year after the pa&sage of this new tariff act another congressional election came. This time the verdict of two years boforc was sharply reversed. A Democratic house oi representatives was chosen and enough state legislatures overturned to cut heavily into the Republican control of the senate. This was the sixty-second congress which would not have been organized until December, 1911, had President Taft not been de- i sirous of securing the ratification of the Canadian reciprocity measure which the previous congress had denied him. Had the new congress contented itself with approving the reciprocity pact, the tariff situation would have remained practically undisturbed. The Democratic house, however, considered itself bound by j popular mandate to go further in the revision program. In this it i acted against the judgment of the Republican president, against j the protest of the business interests generally. There was nothing to indicate, however, that it acted contraiy to the desire of the great rank and file of its own party. So, with the exception of the reciprocitj' measure, President Taft vetoed all the tariff bills sent him by this Democratic house acting in co-operation with the Democratic-Insurgent senate. He declared that these revision measures were not "scientific," that the tariff board would be ready to report early in the regular session ses-sion allowing a more accurate amendment of the Payne-Aldrich law and that it would be disastrous to business to disturb the tariff twice within six months. This, then, is the situation as congress gets down to work for the long session. Tariff action is certain. Can the Democrats frame a measure which the Republican executive will sign? If he uses the veto again, what will its effect be on the election of 1912? The possibilities are many; prophecy would be profitless. |