222 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
THE FORDNEY TARIFF RILL 
By F. W. Kelsey, of the F. W. Kelsey Nursery Co., 50 
Church St., N. Y. 
The peak of trouble breeding inconsistency in the 
Fordney Tariff bill is reached in the American Valuation 
plan, authorizing valuation and reassessment of duty by 
customs officials at any time within a year after entries 
have been made of the goods. Even as modified this un¬ 
workable monstrosity as applied to all importations sur¬ 
passes anything heretofore known in tariff legislation, 
or attempts to restrict importations to the minimum 
point. 
The practical effect will be to make all importations 
pure and simple gambling. No one will know or can pos¬ 
sibly ascertain for a year what any article passing any 
United States Customs House will cost; or how much 
must be added as a speculative venture to the cost al¬ 
ready paid for freight and other charges. 
In all the unsettling and trying conditions from the 
war inflations and resultant present industrial prostra¬ 
tions, what can be more demoralizing or a menace to 
trade conditions than this feature of a tariff law? It 
would at once cause endless confusion, intolerable and 
prolonged litigation and never ending appeals to Con¬ 
gress and the courts to right the innumerable wrongs 
which must inevitably arise. Appraisers at different 
ports would fix a different valuation on the same articles 
at the same time thus making confusion still worse con¬ 
founded. Duty being levied on duty, values would be 
pyramided accordingly. 
A practical test of the actual working of such a law 
was effected in what for many years became known in 
Congress and the courts as the “Steel Rlooms case.” 
Railroad building in this country from 1878 to 1882 was 
going rapidly forward. Steel blooms were largely im¬ 
ported for supplying the demand for rails. Although the 
advalorem duty in the then tariff law was specifically 
30%, a clause in the Act gave the Secretary of the Treas¬ 
ury the right to revalue or “reclassify” this item. On the 
arrival of the importations the owners were cooly in¬ 
formed that if they did not pay a duty of 45% and that 
without protest the steel “would be reclassified at 2 1 4 
cents per pound” making the duty 180%. As this rate 
spelled ruin to many of the owners the 45% was there¬ 
upon paid. The amount involved in this 15% excess duty 
was $856,070.18 The United States court later decided 
the legal rate to be 30%. Tbe illegal 15% having been 
paid, under duress and without protest the only remedy 
for refund rested with Congress. The court of Claims, 
affirmed that the payment was made “under duress and 
by warning by the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 
French, with a reminder that he had authoirty to re¬ 
classify the duty of 180% advalorem.” 
Soon afterwards the Treasury Department on full in¬ 
vestigation recommended the refund bills be passed and 
paid. Notwithstanding these records of fact the bills in 
Congress for return of this illegal duty became a veri¬ 
table play of battledore and shuttlecock. The senate 
would repeatedly pass the refund bills, only to be tied up 
in tbe House. 
The House Committee on claims in its unanimous re¬ 
port June 9, 1916 (Congressional Record of that date 
pages 10775-7) in recommending payment of these 
claims said that “These importers were held up by the 
officials of the Government. They were made to stand 
and deliver just as much as any band of highwaymen 
ever robbed a victim. Tbe court practically said as much 
when it held that these parties were forced by threats to 
waive their rights to make protests. Surely this Govern¬ 
ment cannot sanction such a wrong to her citizens.” 
Rut it did. The bills were then on the unanimous con¬ 
sent calendar. One member objected and they again went 
over. 
The finale was reached when at the last session of 
Congress the unpaid claims, amounting to $142,552.18 
were added to the General Deficiency Rill, and last April 
the refund was paid after nearly forty years of watch¬ 
ful waiting. 
Fortunately these claimants had the resources and 
perseverance to pursue to a conclusion this case of 
wrong and injustice under the practical workings of the 
American valuation scheme, but how would it be under 
such a law with those less fortunately placed? And the 
innumerable cases for dispute and adjudication that will 
at once and of necessity arise. 
Rut the Fordney bill as a whole is more of a prohibit¬ 
ive tariff measure than one for protection. Protective 
principles have obviously gone wild. The Payne-Aldrich 
bill with its fatal consequence to the Republican party 
was like free trade in comparison. Has it not always 
been shown that paralyzing imports correspondingly re¬ 
duces exports? A Chinese wall of excess duties cannot 
compel foreign countries to p a y the higher prices thereby 
increased in the United States. And will these higher 
prices help to solve labor conditions? 
However, how can the enactment of such a tariff law 
do other than encourage retaliation by foreign countries, 
continue the present international, industrial and finan¬ 
cial chaos and inject an almost unsurmountable barrier 
against the recovery and stabilizing of financial, indus¬ 
trial and trade conditions. 
Duties in the Fordney bill are in many instances al¬ 
most confiscatory in comparison with the relative value 
of the goods. In the agricultural class for instance. Tulip 
bulbs raised from $1.00 per thousand to $4.00 per thou¬ 
sand, an increase of 300%. Here is an article not grown 
and cannot be grown successfully here and of very gen¬ 
eral use for beautifying homes and gardens everywhere, 
yet taxed with a recklessness in keeping with the gen¬ 
eral features of the bill. Lily of the Valley duty also is 
jumped from $2.50 to $10.00 per thousand, and so on 
throughout the list and other schedules. 
An effective barrier against nearly all horticultural 
importations is already in force under Quarantine No. 
37, promulgated by Secretary of Agriculture Houston on 
recommendation of the Federal Horticultural Roard and 
in effect since June 1,1919. Under this extrordinary edict 
of exclusion, practically all trees, shrubs, vines, and 
plants are arbitrarily prohibited, and only bulbs, a few 
seedlings and cuttings are admitted. 
As the Federal Horticultural Roard has been and is 
composed of five entomologists who have apparently for 
a number of years been in a perpetual state of hysteria 
over insect pests, it will be interesting to observe how 
the Fordney bill as finally passed will tend to complete 
