White House Statement on the United States Tariff Commission Report.

THE WHITE HOUSE has received a great many requests for information regarding the work down by the United States Tariff Commission under the flexible clause of the Tariff Act. The attached statement deals with the activities of the reorganized Commission during the 9 months to July 1, 1931, that it has been in office.

Investigations involving 229 different articles have been authorized. Work on 110 has been fully completed, while investigations of 119 are still under consideration. Of this latter number, public hearings have been held on 33 articles. Inquiries into 51 of the remaining number of articles have advanced to the point of public hearings or are otherwise nearing completion, leaving only 35 articles awaiting preliminary action.

Of the reports submitted to the President, two, dealing with four articles, have been returned to the Commission for further study. The others have been approved. No changes in duties were made in 50 percent of the reports. A little over half of the other reports involved reductions; the balance provided for increases.

The cases brought before the Commission are being handled expeditiously. The tables presented herewith reveal that the Commission is disposing of the cases at a rate of one per week. The tables show that some 200 items relating to the strictly flexible provisions of the tariff have either been dealt with, are in process of hearings, or are in the form of applications now before the Commission.

The Tariff Act of 1930 contained 3,221 dutiable items. Of this total 2,171 were unchanged from the 1922 tariff; 890 were increased; and 235 were decreased.

Aside from the work of the Tariff Commission in respect to the flexible clause upon requests by Congress for special surveys relating to imports, the Commission has completed 4 reports dealing with 10 subjects. In addition, a fifth survey of leaf tobacco has been completed by the Commission. This survey was made by the Commission on its own initiative.

The following statement by the Tariff Commission gives in detail the statistics of its work since it was reorganized:

ACTIVITIES OF NEW TARIFF COMMISSION TO JULY 31, 1931

The Tariff Act of 1930 was passed on June 17, 1930.

The previous Tariff Commission was given ninety days pending the appointment of the new Commission for the completion of all records, etc. under the Act of 1922.

Five of the present Commissioners were given recess appointments on September 17, and have, therefore, been directly responsible for work under the Tariff Act of 1930 for a period of nine months. No decisions were made on matters of policy pertaining to applications or investigations until the sixth member of the Commission qualified, which was in October, 1930. This period was devoted to the revision of the rules of practice and procedure and mapping out the work required of the Commission.

The names of the members given recess appointments were submitted to the Senate in December, and confirmation was agreed to by the Senate in January, thus it is five months since the present Tariff Commissioners were confirmed by the Senate; six months since their names were submitted to the Senate; and nine months since the first of them were appointed.

Investigations instituted:

While the present Commission has been in office approximately nine months, or thirty-six weeks, 75 investigations and surveys have been formally instituted under the Tariff Act of 1930. Of these, 36 have already been entirely disposed of, or an average of one per week from the time of appointment of the new Commission. Of these 36 investigations, 5 were surveys which have been published (see table 1); 9 were rescinded, withdrawn or dismissed by Senate Resolution after sufficient work had been done to demonstrate that this was the proper action (see table 2); and 22 were completed as reports and submitted to the President (see table 3). Public hearings have already been held on 10 additional investigations, and work on these is nearing completion (see table 4).

Work on 29 other surveys and investigations is also proceeding as rapidly as possible consistent with the careful study and analysis which the Commission gives each topic (see table 5). In most of these cases costs of production have been secured in the United States, and cost work is now progressing in foreign countries. Public hearings will probably be held on all of these within the next ninety days.

With reference to 46 additional applications which have been filed with the Commission, sufficient work has been done on 24 to demonstrate that complete cost investigations were not justified. Twenty of them have been denied by the Commission and dismissed without prejudice (see table 6); four have been withdrawn by the applicants (see table 6). This leaves 22 applications for investigation pending, and work is proceeding on the preliminary studies with reference to these (see table 7).

The Commission has, therefore, carried the work forward on 121 projects including applications, investigations, and surveys; has disposed of 36 of these, or an average of one per week; has dismissed 24 additional applications; work has progressed on 39 additional investigations, and preliminary study is well advanced on the 22 applications pending.