ized, as soon as may be after the passage of this act, and from time to time thereafter, to enter into negotiations with the governments of those countries exporting to the United States the above-mentioned articles, or any of them, with a view to the arrangement of commercial agreements in which reciprocal and equivalent concessions may be secured in favor of the products and manufactures of the United States; and whenever the government of any country or colony producing and exporting to the United States the above mentioned articles, or any of them, shall enter into a commercial agreement with the United States, or make concessions in favor of the products or manufactures thereof, which, in the judgment of the President, shall be reciprocal and equivalent, he shall be, and is hereby, authorized and empowered to suspend, during the time of such agreement or concession, by proclamation to that effect, the imposition and collection of the duties mentioned in this act, on such article or articles so exported to the United States from such country or colony, and thereupon and thereafter the duties levied, collected, and paid upon such article or articles shall be as follows, namely:

"Argols, or crude tartar, or wine lees crude, five per centum ad valorem.

"Brandies, or other spirits manufactured or distilled from grain or other material, one dollar and seventy-five cents per proof gallon.

"Champagne and all other sparkling wines, in bottles containing not more than one quart and more than one pint, six dollars per dozen; containing not more than one pint each and more than one-half pint, three dollars per dozen; containing one-half pint each or less, one dollar and fifty cents per dozen; in bottles or other vessels containing more than one quart each, in addition to six dollars per dozen bottles on the quantities in excess of one quart, at the rate of one dollar and ninety cents per gallon.

"Still wines and vermuth, in casks, thirty-five cents per gallon; in bottles or jugs, per case of one dozen bottles or jugs containing each not more than one quart and more than one pint, or twenty-four bottles or jugs containing each not more than one pint, one dollar and twenty-five cents per case, and any excess beyond these quantities found in such bottles or jugs shall be subject to a duty of four cents per pint or fractional part thereof, but no separate or additional duties shall be assessed upon the bottles or jugs.

"Paintings in oils or water colors, pastels, pen and ink drawings, and statuary, fifteen per centum ad valorem.

"The President shall have power and it shall be his duty, whenever he shall be satisfied that any such agreement in this section mentioned

is not being fully executed by the government with which it shall have been made, to revoke such suspension and notify such government thereof.

"And it is further provided that, with a view to secure reciprocal trade with countries producing the following articles, whenever and so often as the President shall be satisfied that the government of any country, or colony of such government, producing and exporting directly or indirectly to the United States coffee, tea, and tonquin, tonqua, or tonka beans, and vanilla beans, or any of such articles, imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural, manufactured, or other products of the United States, which, in view of the introduction of such coffee, tea, and tonquin, tonqua, or tonka beans, and vanilla beans, into the United States, as in this act hereinbefore provided for, he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, he shall have the power and it shall be his duty to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such coffee, tea, and tonquin, tonqua, or tonka beans, and vanilla beans, of the products of such country or colony, for such time as he shall deem just; and in such case and during such suspension duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon coffee, tea, and tonquin, tonqua, or tonka beans, and vanilla beans, the products or exports, direct or indirect, from such designated country, as follows:

"On coffee, three cents per pound.

"On tea, ten cents per pound.

"On tonquin, tonqua, or tonka beans, fifty cents per pound; vanilla beans, two dollars per pound; vanilla beans, commercially known as cuts, one dollar per pound.

"SEC. 4. That whenever the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, with a view to secure reciprocal trade with foreign countries, shall, within the period of two years from and after the passage of this act, enter into commercial treaty or treaties with any other country or countries concerning the admission into any such country or countries of the goods, wares, and merchandise of the United States and their use and disposition therein, deemed to be for the interests of the United States, and in such treaty or treaties, in consideration of the advantages accruing to the United States therefrom, shall provide for the reduction during a specified period, not exceeding five years, of the duties imposed by this act, to the extent of not more than twenty per centum thereof, upon such goods as or merchandise as may be designated therein of the country or countries with which such treaty or treaties shall be made as in this section provided for; or shall provide for the transfer during

such period from the dutiable list of this act to the free list thereof of such goods, wares, and merchandise, being the natural products of such foreign country or countries and not of the United States; or shall provide for the retention upon the free list of this act during a specified period, not exceeding five years, of such goods, wares, and merchandise now included in said free list as may be designated therein; and when any such treaty shall have been duly ratified by the Senate and approved by Congress, and public proclamation made accordingly, then and thereafter the duties which shall be collected by the United States upon any of the designated goods, wares, and merchandise from the foreign country with which such treaty has been made shall, during the period provided for, be the duties specified and provided for in such treaty, and none other."

The bill, of course, was highly protective. It not only greatly raised duties on many commodities but it restored the tariff on wool, taxed hides at fifteen per cent., and established an elaborate sugar schedule

In studying the later history of reciprocity, this sugar schedule became a matter of great importance. Just as was the case, therefore, with the Wilson bill, it is necessary to bear carefully in mind precisely what was done by the Dingley Act on the subject of sugar.

The provisions of the act, so far as they relate to sugar, ran as follows:

"209. Sugars not above number sixteen Dutch standard in color, tank bottoms, sirups of cane juice, melada, concentrated melada, concrete and concentrated molasses, testing by the polariscope not above seventyfive degrees, ninety-five one-hundredths of one cent per pound, and for every additional degree shown by the polariscopic test, thirty-five one-thousandths of one cent per pound additional, and fractions of a degree in proportion; and on sugar above number sixteen Dutch standard in color, and on all sugar which has gone through a process of refining, one cent and ninety-five one-hundredths of one cent per pound; molasses testing above forty degrees and not above fifty-six degrees, three cents per gallon; testing fifty-six degrees and above, six cents per gallon: sugar drainings and sugar sweepings shall be subject to duty as molasses or sugar, as the case may be, according to polariscopic test: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to abrogate or in any manner impair or affect the pro

visions of the treaty of commercial reciprocity concluded between the United States and the King of the Hawaiian Islands on the thirtieth day of January, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, or the provisions of any act of Congress heretofore passed for the execution of the same.

"210. Maple sugar and maple sirup, four cents per pound; glucose or grape sugar, one and one-half cents per pound; sugar cane in its natural state, or unmanufactured, twenty per centum ad valorem.

"211. Saccharine, one dollar and fifty cents per pound and ten per centum ad valorem,

"212. Sugar candy and all confectionery not specially provided for in this act, valued at fifteen cents per pound or less, and on sugars after being refined, when tinctured, colored or in any way adulterated, four cents per pound, and fifteen per centum ad valorem; valued at more than fifteen cents per pound, fifty per centum ad valorem. The weight and the value of the immediate coverings, other than the outer packing case or other covering, shall be included in the dutiable weight and the value of the merchandise."

Why this schedule was of moment in its bearing on beet sugar and the progress of that industry, it will be possible to discuss at greater length later on. The point of first importance here is to get clearly in mind exactly what it was that was done by the Dingley Act on the subject of sugar. Few Congressmen, as it subsequently appeared, understood even remotely what had been done, and much of the vague and misleading talk which was heard during the Cuban reciprocity debate was based upon ignorance of the meaning of the Dingley provisions. It has been seen that a duty of forty per cent. ad valorem had been imposed on all raw sugar under the act of 1894. The price of raw sugar, however, had steadily fallen, owing to continued over-production in all countries of the world. In 1896 forty per cent. ad valorem meant a duty of less than a cent a pound on imported raw sugar. The revenue from this source had consequently been relatively small. As will be seen from a study of the sugar schedule already given, and a comparison of prices ruling in the market, what the Dingley Act did was to substantially double the duty on raw sugar. To start with, it was made

specific instead of ad valorem. Although it was cleverly fixed at one cent a pound on sugar of seventy-five degrees (polariscope test) it was gradually increased to 1.65 cents on ninetyfive degree sugar, which was the ordinary purity of the raw sugar of commerce. A great deal of credit was assumed by the Republicans for the protection thus afforded to the beet sugar industry in the West, but in truth this protection was no greater than had been enjoyed by the then nonexistent beet sugar industry prior to the passage of the McKinley Act. The real motive for imposing this duty on raw sugar was the need of revenue, raw sugar being a most certain and productive source of income. On refined sugar, the Dingley Act granted a duty of 1.95 cents per pound. This, however, was .125 cents greater than the duty to be imposed upon raw sugar of 100 degrees. For the process of refining, therefore, an extra protection of one-eighth of a cent (.125) was given. This was the so-called "differential" of which so much was said during the Cuban sugar debate. It was the excess protection given to refined sugar as compared with raw sugar of an equal grade of saccharinity. It will be recalled that an additional duty of one-tenth of a cent per pound had been granted upon all sugar coming from countries paying an export bounty. In 1897 an alteration was further introduced into this provision, when it was ordered that the Secretary of the Treasury should impose on such bounty-fed sugars countervailing duties equal in amount to the export bounties.

The tariff act of 1897 adopted a new departure in the method of providing for reciprocity. To the so-called “tropical reciprocity" of the McKinley bill in a much modified form it now attempted to add reciprocity which would result in making certain concessions to some European countries in which it was believed that our manufacturers might find a market for their goods. The articles selected, of course, had to be of a character which would not materially interfere with the industries of the United States. Thus two kinds of reci