THE RECIPROCITY AGREEMENT

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1131, 19 May 1911, Page 5

THE RECIPROCITY AGREEMENT

VOTE TO BE PRESSED FOR. By TelenraDU-Press Associatton-Copyrieht Washington, May 17. Senator TV. J. Stone, a Missouri Democrat, announced in tho Senate Finance Committee on tho Free List Bills that he would soon press for a vote on the question of the Reciprocity Agreement with Canada. THE OUTLOOK IN CONGRESS. ' There is no doubt as to the course of _the American House of Representatives 'on Canadian reciprocity. The Demooratic party is pledged to support it, and an attempt to upset the'provisional agreement with Canada would bo fatal to any faction of Democratio representatives that was thus recreant to the party's avowed principles. Tho real difficulty, writes a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian," begins when tho niajority leaders reach the point of deciding whether in this special session they shall set to work on a general revision of the tariff. It is quito within their right to undertake such a piece of business now if they wish it, for a special session of Congress is not restricted—as are the special sessions of some of the State Legislatures—to the consideration of'the subjects mentioned in the proclamation that summons it. But a complete revision, as the experience of two years ago showed, , is & tremendous task; and demands a more careful preparation than'the nmv leaders of Congress have as yet had time to givo.it. Possibly two or three of the more offensive schedules may be modified at once. President Taft's own condemnation of the wool schedule, for instance, would niako it difficult for him to veto a Bill for its amendment. As far as present signs indicate, the Democratic majority in Congress are not likely to treat Mr. Taft in a factious spirit. He is expected to have more trouble with the Senate, although his own party are still in a majority in'that body. It is within the Senate that are to be fonnd the leaders of the National Progressive Republican League which was organised last January as an nnti-Taft movement. As this group will hold tho balance of power between the Democrats and the orthodox Republicans in the Upper House, the situation in that Chamber is one which makes any intelligent forecast impossible.