A UNITED STATES PROBLEM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 80, 24 May 1911, Page 2

A UNITED STATES PROBLEM.

THE TARIFF. The new Democratic Congress m t for tiio first Dine early in Api .1, and extraordinary interest was taken in the ceremony. ‘•For tiro iiisl time s nee .Mr. .McKinley heat in IS*.)6 Mi. Bryan and tlio free-silver Democrats, me Republicans have lost complete control in Congress,says , Tna 'limes, “and the President will find liimsolt confronted with a Democratic majority of 'J2 in the House, Mine .a i.n buna to the Republic ii mamritv will luivo shrank to p. ono/r. >•: - so pmCaiious tiiat tin .i'- ifbrdi u ol a few mmnbeis v.ol nut the co »t*> of that Chamber also into the hand 1 , nl the (fopasitinu.

THE EFFECT OF THE TARIFF. “The tariff has boon the underlying factor in the change. The Republicans owe their disruption and defeat to the too loyal allegiance of their titular loaders, when they framed the Payne' Law, to fiscal principles which the country had already repudiated. Since then many of those politicians have gone into retirement and tire Republican Party has abandoned nighpiotoction. Hut by so do'uj; it lias not as yet achieved solidity. No impartial person can doubt that the Picsident is fundamentally as jvog cssivolV inclined as Mr. Roosevelt or any insurgent. Nobody who has matched its working at close qua l ters can question the patriotic efficiency oi ids Administration. Yet to pretend that the President bolds to-day the sympathy and confidence of even < majority of his party in poll tus — whatever the man in the scioecs may trink of him—would oe ;o laicreprecont facts.” One of the main objects of tins special session is to pass the JJecip ocity agreement between the United States and Canada. “It is believed on all hands tliai reciprocity is well m saut and will piss, but how, or when :c v, ill pass no man can say,” says ‘The. Times” correspondent. “There are rumours afloat that it may be neld up in the House pending the pasage by the Senate of various tariff ra insures which the House will 'ii’al complete.

The motive of such procedure on the part of the Democrats waul i lie to make the President of a Republican Senate purchase reciprocity at the p; ice of an immediate revision of the wool, woollen, and cotton schedules, and possibly of free trade in certain commodities that arc now dutiable. The popularity of the Canadian arrangement would thus lie used as a lever. Whether the Democrats could [ cany such a game to a successful issue is as problematic as their intention to embark upon it. “The Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee of the House aia starting work this week upon the wool and woollen schedules or the Payne Law, schedules which, it will Ire remembered, tho President was among tho fust to condemn. After wool’ they mean to attack the cotton schedule. These schedules disposed of, nearly anything may happen. There is a clamour on the part of some Democrats to take up ‘necessities of life.’ Nearly everyone, indeed, has his favourite subject for revision, and the chances arc that much time will ho wasted over futile Dills introduced less for fiscal than for political effect. “It is not even certain that the wool and cotton schedules will ho rewised during tho; summer.

THE PRESIDENT’S ATTITUDE. “An obstacle in tho way of tariff legislation may lie in tho attitude of tie President. Scientific tariff-mak-ing with the help of an non-political tariff commission is as integral apart of liis fiscal policy as piecemeal revision. His Tariff Board is unlikely to he able to report on any schedules before tho autumn. It is possible, therefore, that lie may veto tariff laws passed during the summer on the ground that such laws should bo postponed until next winter’s session. when tho investigation of the Tariff Board into the most important schedules will have boon finished.”