Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/397

Rh appraisers to "proceed by all reasonable ways and means in their power to ascertain, estimate and determine the dutiable value of the imported merchandise, and in so doing they may exercise both judicial and inquisitorial functions." This, however, only applies to articles which are subject to an ad valorem duty or to a duty based upon or regulated in some manner by the value thereof. In such cases the act distinctly provides that the duty shall be assessed upon the actual market value or wholesale price thereof, at the time of exportation to the United States, in the principal markets of the country whence the goods are exported; and that such actual market value shall be held to be the price at which such merchandise is freely offered for sale to all purchasers in said markets, in the usual wholesale quantities, and the price which the manufacturers or owners would have received, and was willing to receive, for such merchandise when sold in the ordinary course of trade in the usual wholesale quantities. In order to determine with any degree of accuracy, the appraisers, the board of appraisers, and on appeal the government's counsel, must be in possession of the facts in detail to properly know and present the government's side of the case. When one reflects that some 300 to 400 millions of dollars are expected to be annually collected as revenue from the tariff, one realizes that there are sure to be strong tendencies, acting on the exporters of foreign countries and the importers here, to keep the valuations down to the lowest possible sum. The importers are allowed to produce witnesses and try out their cases in very much the same manner as prevails in ordinary cases before the courts of justice, with the additional authority in the board of appraisers that they have inquisitorial powers.

The tariff board can clearly be of great assistance to our various customs officers if it should continually keep informed and have in its possession facts and figures relative to the cost of foreign products, as incidental to their true value and as indicative of the price which the foreign manufacturer or owner would have received and was willing to receive, when sold in the ordinary course of trade, in the usual wholesale quantities, in the principal markets of the country, whence the goods may be exported. Such assistance would be increased when the publications of the tariff board by virtue of their accuracy, completeness and truth come to be regarded as authoritative and are accepted as such both here and in foreign countries. A condition like this would lead to better trade relations between this country and the other powers of the world.

The president has repeatedly stated that he will construe the act as empowering the board to find out the facts at home and abroad so as to assist him in his administration of the maximum and minimum section, and to assist in the administration of the customs laws in general by the officers of the government. With this end in view he has directed