| THE TARIFF BOARD: ITS SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS |
By SEYMOUR C. LOOMIS
NEW HAVEN, CONN.
EMINENT authorities on civil government lay down the rule that certain questions should be left to the people or their representatives in a legislative body, and certain other questions should be decided by experts: the latter, not because experts do, or do not, represent the people, but because they are more familiar with the subject matter and better able to reach a correct determination. Upon this principle our federal and state constitutions have separated the legislative from the judicial department. The legislature is chosen particularly to represent the people; the judiciary, because of its knowledge of the administration of the law.
Many, if not most, public questions arising in a republic, may properly be classified in one or the other of two ways: those which should be settled by the people, and those which are best referred for final action to men trained in the subject-matter. There are some questions, however, which can not be put wholly in one or the other of these divisions. They are similar to those issues arising in the practise of law which are mixed questions of law and of fact, as, for example, the question of negligence. The court, when a case involving negligence is before it, decides what standards the law requires and provides certain positive rules which must be obeyed by a party in order for him to be in the exercise of due care. But within those rules there are a vast number of cases which may, or may not, amount to negligence in fact, according as the jury applies the test of what an ordinarily prudent person would, or would not, do under the circumstances.
So the tariff is a question both for congress and for experts. Under our federal constitution, as well as in accordance with the unwritten principles underlying our government, the power to lay duties is vested in congress. It can not be delegated to any other person or body whatsoever. Obtaining the evidence and finding the facts so that the duty can be intelligently levied, falls within the province of experts. It is for congress to say whether a tariff should be designed primarily for protection or primarily for revenue, and to lay duties accordingly. It has no power under the constitution, and ought to have none, to frame a tariff simply for the purpose of allowing certain persons to obtain an excessive profit. Such a tariff has been called a
