Contractor-in-Chief

In 1789' the year that Congress passed its first law. the settlers on the U. S. frontier, instead of hiring contractors to build their houses, used to invite neighbors from miles around to do the job. At

a grand party enlivened by song and dance and barrels of whiskey, the brawn of many arms rolled new-cut logs to the centre of a clearing and piled them up to make a cabin. The first law passed by Congress was, it happened, a tariff bill. Since then methods of home construction A dunner was referred to the Embassy. (See col. 1)

have undergone profound improvements, but the business of putting a new tariff through Congress has remained a log-rolling party. And each party, more drunken than the one before, has built a crazier tariff cabin to house U. S. economic life. In the hope of advancing tariff -making from the iSth to the 20th Century, Congress last week put into President Roosevelt's waiting hands a magnificent set of blue prints authorizing him to act as Contractor-in-Chief of U. S. tariffs.

The terms of the Act differed little from the President's proposal. They gave him power, during the next three years, to make agreements with any foreign country for reciprocal tariff reductions. Such agreements he can put in effect without the approval of Congress. As under the flexible tariff law. in force since 1922, the President will not be able to lower tariffs more than 50% from present rates, but he can act independently of the Tariff Commission. Three last-minute features of the new law were noteworthy:

1) Congress added this amendment: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to give any authority to cancel or reduce in any manner any of the indebtedness of any foreign country to the U. S." That one sentence knocked out of the President's hand what was general!}7 expected to be his most useful crowbar in prying trade privileges for U. S. industries out of foreign countries with big War Debts owing the U. S.

2) Congress also required the President to give "reasonable public notice" before making tariff agreements. This put an end to the possibility of swift and secret negotiations, without the howls and whines of industries about to suffer a tariff cut. The word "reasonable," however, looked like a joker. By adroitly interpreting it the President might start his negotiations in secret and postpone to the last minute that noisy period in which "any interested person may present his views."

3) The Act in all' likelihood will bring clown upon the White House and on the State Department the same tariff lobby which, like a swarm of locusts, has plagued the Capitol for generations.

President Roosevelt promised Congress that "no sound and important American interest will be injuriously disturbed" by his tariff changes. But in businessmen's eyes all their interests are "sound and important." all tariff reductions on their products are "injurious." And if the President treads on no big important toes, his tariff bargains are likely to produce no big important results in international trade.

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