SENATE OPPOSES WOOL BILL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22340, 27 May 1947, Page 5

SENATE OPPOSES WOOL BILL

IMPORT TAX MOVE COMPROMISE ELIMINATION CONSIDERED DOUBTFUL (12.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 26. The Senate today refused to agree with the provision in the Wool Bill imposing an import tax on foreign wool and delegates from both Houses are conferring in an effort to reach a compromise. It is expected, says Reuter’s correspondent, that the Undersecretary of State, Mr. William Clayton, will take the unusual step of meeting tlie delegates personally to warn them that the import tax would wreck the Geneva trade conference and International Trade Organisation, and undermine American economic and foreign policy. Nevertheless, the elimination of the import tax from the bill is regarded as very doubtful. The House of Representatives Republican leaders were definite today that they would refuse to agree to the elimination of the tax. The Agriculture Department, which is anxious to obtain Congressional approval of the price support features of the bill, contends that the import tax provision can be revised to make it acceptable to the Administration, perhaps by the inclusion of a provision to ban the use of the tax in cases in which it might be deemed to contravene any existing or contemplated treaty to which the United States is a party. Such a provision, however, was rejected by the House of Representatives last week.