TARIFF COMMISSION. COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Sereno E. Payne in the chair. Present: The chairman, and Messrs. Dalzell, Hill, Boutell, Needham, Calderhead, Fordney, Gaines, Longworth, Ellis, Clark, Underwood, Pou, and Harrison. (The committee thereupon proceeded to the consideration of the bill H. R. 26232, "to create a tariff commission" and the bill H. R. 28433, "to create a tariff commission and defining its powers and duties.") The CHAIRMAN. The hearing this morning, gentlemen, is at the request of Mr. Good, of Iowa, in reference to bills creating a tariff commission, etc. The hearing will not be restricted to any one bill, but any gentleman who desires to be heard on the general subject will be heard. I think Mr. Good desired to-Mr. Good, you may state your own desire. STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES W. GOOD, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM IOWA. Mr. GOOD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I have attempted in the bill which I have introduced, H. R. 26232, to work out in detail a tariff commission. I have fashioned the bill somewhat after the interstate-commerce law, but I may say at the outset that I have no pride of opinion or authorship or of opinion with regard to the various details of the bill. It has occurred to me, and I believe it has occurred to a number of the members of your committee, that there ought to be such a commission. It ought to be permanent. It ought to have power to act. With a permanent commission, with power to act, there certainly would be no occasion for remarks from either the floor of the House or from the Senate such as were made by members of this committee on the floor of the House and by Senator Root on the floor of the Senate at the special session of the Sixtysecond Congress. I have before me the speech that was delivered by Mr. Hill, of Connecticut, with regard to the manner in which the last tariff bill was made. He speaks with regard to the preliminary work of the committee, the compiling of the publication "Imports and duties," and then he says: It did not and could not include the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad. 5 Then he speaks of that other most valuable publication that was compiled under the direction of your chairman entitled "Tariff notes;" and of it Mr. Hill says: But in this work, as in the others, there was no basis upon which the difference of cost of production at home and abroad could be ascertained. He further says that there was some effort made to ascertain, through the different departments, these facts, but says: So far as my knowledge is concerned, this attempt to secure information from foreign sources was a complete and total failure. This same testimony is found in the record of the proceedings in the Senate, wherein Senator Root said: We have been here for over three months considering and discussing and voting upon the measure of protection that it is necessary to give in order to keep alive and prosperous the business of tens of thousands of corporations engaged in manufacture and trades affected by the protective tariff. Upon one hand we have garbled statements; upon the other equally garbled and partial statements; and no means of distinguishing the truth. We are under the necessity of proceeding by guesswork, by conjecture, always with dissatisfaction, because we recognize the chance that we have guessed wrong about whose statements come nearest to the truth. The bill that I have introudced is comparatively short, and as I said at the outset it provides for two principal things: First, a permanent tariff commission, and, secondly, a commission that has power to investigate the facts and report those facts to Congress. It seems to me that some such plan is absolutely necessary. By reason of our complex commercial and industrial conditions our knowledge as to the cost of production must be very limited. We can not possibly know all the facts that it is necessary we should know in order to make a tariff bill that will do justice to both the laboring and industrial forces of our country. Past experience has shown us that it is almost impossible to revise the tariff without doing injury to some one, unless we have some commission, some permanent body, with power to investigate cost of production and the changes that are taking place every day regarding such costs and report those changes to this body as a basis for its action. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Have you provided in your bill that they shall give full publicity to their investigations? Mr. GOOD. I provide in the bill that they shall report to Congress, or either branch of Congress, whenever requested so to do; but that, as they are making their investigations, the subjects under investigation shall not be given to the public. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Here is a question that I would like to ask. Does your bill propose for them to report findings of their conclusions to Congress, or findings of fact? Mr. GOOD. Findings of fact, without any recommendation as to the proper course for Congress to pursue. Mr. BOUTELL. You have not discovered, have you, any way of preventing these parties, that Mr. Root refers to, making the same garbled statements to the new tariff board? Mr. GOOD. No; they could make those same statements, but that commission being a permanent tariff commission, with power to investigate, could go out into the different sections of the country, and could go to foreign countries, and investigate those garbled statements, and find out wherein they were garbled and who was telling the truth and report the fact. That, it seems to me, is the essential part of the duty of a permanent tariff commission; and that is the reason why it should be a permanent commission instead of a commission with a fixed tenure. Mr. UNDERWOOD. May I ask you another question? Mr. GOOD. Certainly. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Do you provide in your bill that they shall conduct their investigations under the direction of either the Ways and Means Committee of the House or the Finance Committee of the Senate or of the executive branch of the Government? Is the investigation provided to be directed from the legislative branch or the executive branch of the Government? Mr. GOOD. The bill provides that their investigation shall be an independent investigation, but that when the Ways and Means Committee desires they shall sit with that committee and furnish the information. They shall sit with the Finance Committee of the Senate when it so desires, and furnish that committee with information; and they shall furnish the President such information as he may desire in the administration of the tariff laws. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Here is what I want to find out. Suppose the Ways and Means Committee had concluded to investigate, say, the woolen schedule, and this Commission was investigating the cotton schedule. Is there anything in the bill that would authorize the Ways and Means Committee to call on them and direct them to investigate the subject that the Ways and Means Committee itself desired to take up? Mr. GOOD. There is nothing in the bill that would give any committee, or the Chief Executive, power to authorize them to do any one thing. They work on their own initiative. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Do you not think if the bill is passed along this line at all that the Ways and Means Committee, or the House-for the Ways and Means Committee is only an agent of the Houseshould have power to direct along what line they should make their investigations? Mr. GOOD. I certainly should have no objection to that. I believe that this commission, when constituted, should have the power to investigate all of the facts, and it should be the servant to the securing of this information for the committee. I would see no objection to a detail of that kind. Mr. HARRISON. Do you think the House ought to have the exclusive right to direct these investigations, or that the President ought to share in that right? Mr. GOOD. I should say that the House should not have exclusive right, any more than the Senate Mr. HARRISON. I mean the legislative branch, of course. Do you think they ought to have the exclusive right, or that the Executive ought to share that right? Mr. GOOD. That is a detail to which I have not given consideration. It is a mere detail, and I think it does not make much difference about that. The principal thing, it seems to me, after all, is the creation of a commission with power to act and report to Congress. Mr. Pou. There is one question I would like to hear you address yourself to. The object of the bill seems to be to ascertain the difference in the cost of production here and abroad. Suppose your commission was abroad and the manufacturers over there should refuse to give the information that you are seeking to get; by what process would you proceed to get that information? Mr. GOOD. If they should refuse to give information, I do not think it could be secured by any process from that source. It would have to be obtained from other sources. Mr. Pou. So that, I understand, all the information you could possibly get on the other side would have to be purely voluntary? Mr. GOOD. It would have to be purely voluntary or from published reports and matters of general information in those countries. Of course, I see no way in which such a commission could subpoena witnesses abroad who did not care to respond to subpoena. Mr. HARRISON. If the gentleman from Iowa will permit me to get a little further information, he seems to regard it as more or less of a detail whether this tariff commission he proposes to create is to be in operation under the direction of Congress or of the Executive. He will remember that in the debate in the House last year that question was a very essential one. Which, in the opinion of the gentleman from Iowa, is the branch of the Government that ought to have the direction of the investigation of this commission? Mr. GOOD. I think it is more important that the legislative branch should have direction than that the President should have it. Mr. HARRISON. Does he not think it ought to be an exclusive right? Mr. GOOD. An exclusive right in the legislative branch? Mr. HARRISON. An exclusive right in the legislative branch. Mr. Good. I do not think so. I think that if the Executive desired information along some line to aid him in the administration of the tariff laws, that that commission ought to furnish such information. The CHAIRMAN. The bill provides for that in section 5. Mr. HARRISON. Suppose there were a Republican President and a Democratic House of Representatives, or vice versa, and the House of Representatives wanted to investigate the woolen schedule and the President wanted to investigate the cotton schedule. What have you to say about the conflict of authority in that case? Would not the right have to be executive or legislative-one or the other? Mr. GOOD. I do not believe that state would ever come about or that conditions would be such that they could not investigate both in due course of time. Mr. HARRISON. The gentleman knows how long it takes to revise the tariff, and how searching the investigation must be, and he can see what a conflict would arise. I consider that of a good deal of importance. Mr. GOOD. In section 5 of the bill I have provided for the information that the commission should furnish to the President with regard to the different lines of investigations that it should pursue. Mr. HILL. And in section 4 you have provided for the information Mr. GOOD. I have provided there for the report to Congress. Mr. HILL. So that apparently sections 4 and 5 cover precisely the ground asked by Mr. Harrison, do they not? Mr. GOOD. Except that I think Mr. Harrison's question implied the suggestion that there should be a mandatory provision. Mr. HILL. Is not that contained in both of the sections, under the language of section 4 so far as the House and Senate committees are |