CAUSTIC NEWSPAPER COMMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26472, 28 May 1947, Page 5

CAUSTIC NEWSPAPER COMMENT

NEW YORK, May 26. The Baltimore Sun, in an editorial on the Wool Bill, which passed the House of Representatives on Friday, says: “The wool tariff vote in the House was a cynical grab which the President or Congress, after reflection, will be expected to slap down. This Bill would pick the pockets of American consumers by boosting the price of woollen clothing.” “It would yank the rug out from under American bargainers seeking tariff concessions from other nations at Geneva in the interest of revived world trade. It would shoot holes in the country’s economic foreign policy. “All this is accomplished by a Bill which hangs wool on the hat rack of special privilege high above most other commodities. “Many commodities have tariff protection, but this Bill would give domestic wool a super tariff over and above the normal extremely high tariff of 34 cents per pound. “The present laws provide import fees and import quotas on crops like foreign cotton, but the American market is not as important to foreign cotton people as to foreign wool people. That is because America raises more than enough cotton for her own needs, but less than enough wool. “ To sum up, the House Wool Bill is a screaming example of those kinds of economic gouges which its farm-State backers howl at most eloquently when business or Labour groups seek to perpetrate them. It is a squeeze which Congress must reconsider in conference; or, failing that, the President must veto the Bill.