TARIFF TAW

The present tariff law has accomplished its two main objects.  It has secured an abundant revenue and been productive of an abounding prosperity.  Under it the country has had a very large export and import trade.  A constant revision of the tariff by the Congress is disturbing and harmful.  The present law contains an elastic provision authorizing the President to increase or decrease present schedules not in excess of 50 per centum to meet the difference in cost of production at home and abroad.  This does not, to my mind, warrant a rewriting g of the whole law, but does mean, and will be so administered, that whenever the required investigation shows that inequalities of sufficient importance exist in any schedule, the power to change them should and will be applied.

SHIPPING

The entire well being of our country is dependent upon transportation by sea and land.  Our Government during the war acquired a large merchant fleet which should be transferred, as soon as possible, to private ownership and operation under conditions which would secure two results:  First, and of prime importance, adequate means for national defense; second, adequate service to American commerce.  Until shipping conditions are such that our fleet can be disposed of advantageously under these conditions, it will be operated as economically as possible under such plans as may be devised from time to time by the Shipping Board.  We must have a merchant marine which meets these requirements, and we shall have to pay the cost of its service.

PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS

The time has come to resume in a moderate way the opening of our intracoastal waterways; the control of flood waters of the Mississippi and of the Colorado Rivers; the improvement of the waterways from the Great Lakes toward the Gulf of Mexico; and the development of the great power and navigation project of the St. Lawrence River, for which efforts are now being made to secure the necessary treaty with Canada.  These projects can not all be undertaken at once, but all should have the immediate consideration of the Congress and be adopted as fast as plans can be matured and the necessary funds become available.  This is not incompatible with economy, for their nature does not require so much a public expenditure as a capital investment which will be reproductive, as evidenced by the marked increase in revenue from the Panama Canal.  Upon these projects depend much future industrial and agricultural progress.  They represent the protection of large areas from flood and the addition of a great amount of cheap power and cheap freight by use of navigation, chief of which is the bringing of ocean-going ships to the Great Lakes.

Another problem of allied character is the superpower development of the Northeastern States, consideration of which is growing under the direction of the Department of Commerce by joint conference with the local authorities.