Tied Tariffers

The Tariff Commission has six members. Six is a good number for a poker game, but for a deliberative body it has its disadvantages. Ever and anon, the Board divides against itself -three and three. A short time ago, it so divided against itself on the question of whether a Commissioner might sit in the consideration of a case involving a commodity in which he himself had business interests. The quarrel dragged on.

Congress came to the. Commission's aid, passed a law against a Commissioner participating in a case in which he or his immediate relatives had a direct pecuniary interest.

Apparently the matter was settled. Not so. The Commission undertook the investigation of the tariff on butter. Immediately three disgusted members announced that they could not take part in the proceedings because they owned farms on which cows were kept. The other three members grew very angry.

Together all six took their quarrel to the President. He referred them all to Comptroller General McCarl. Mr. McCarl sent them a written opinion several days later. He held that the relatives in the forbidden group were "father, mother, children, brothers and sisters of husband or wife." He held that "direct pecuniary interest" meant "an interest upon which action in the tariff-matter under consideration would be immediately, rather than remotely, reflected."

It is not unlikely that the six Commissioners will divide -three against three -on the question of how Mr. McCarl should be interpreted.