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U. S. manufacturers have long clamored for a U. S. Valuation system, largely because it would mean much higher duties, hence greater "protection." They have claimed that imported goods are grossly undervalued on the foreign-valuation basis to get the benefit of cheaper ad valorem duties.
The House tariff bill took a long step in the direction of substituting U. S. Valuation for Foreign when it proposed that the President be authorized to shift tariff appraisals from foreign to domestic valuation when conditions warranted. Senate Finance Committee Republicans took their problem with them into executive session, wrestled with the evidence spread between the two valuation systems, pondered the merits of each.
Opposition. To "flexibility" and U. S. Valuation most Democratic Senators are opposed. Also in opposition are Idaho's Senator Borah and the Republican Progressives following his lead in the forthcoming tariff fight. Their objection is that the flexible provision of the law gives the President an unconstitutional power to "levy taxes," that U. S. Valuation is a subterfuge to obtain higher rates than the tariff bill itself would seem to grant.
About Washington last week spread a story that President Hoover, favoring tariff flexibility, had secretly asked the Tariff Commission to supply him with the names of Democratic Senators who had appealed to it for higher tariff rates under the law's flexible, clause for commodities of, local interest to them. It was said that President Hoover was going to use this information to combat the Democratic attack upon tariff flexibility, to show that many a Democrat had covertly sought to use this very machinery to get higher rates for special commodities. Mississippi's Senator Harrison shouted that neither he nor any other Democrat would thus be "bludgeoned or browbeaten" by the White House.
Promptly President Hoover denied that he had made any such request to the Tariff Commission. Observers began to realize that the Tariff fight was passing into its bitterest stage.