G, IN THE INVESTIGATION OF MEN'S SEWED STRAW HATS

While I concur with my associates in transmitting the commission's data
in the investigation of men's sewed straw hats, a differentiation of
views must be expressed with respect to certain conclusions which may be
drawn from such data.

_Both higher and lower duties indicated by the commission's cost
figures._--Under the provisions of section 315 of the tariff act of
1922, the information secured by the commission and summarized in this
report points not only to an increased duty on lower-priced hats but
also to a decreased duty on higher-priced hats. It is submitted that
no satisfactory reason can be assigned under the present record for
failing to recommend such a simultaneous upward and downward change in
the present rate of duty by the use of the provisions for flexibility in
the tariff act of 1922. Under the controlling statute all commissioners
are agreed that a clear distinction exists between the bulk of the
lower-priced hats coming from Italy and the lesser but considerable
quantity of higher-priced hats imported from Great Britain. This feature
of the commission's summarized data is particularly presented in Tables
5, 6, and 7, in which are shown the sources, volume, and foreign values
of imported hats. Table 8 presents American and Italian costs of
lower-priced hats; Table 9, cost data for higher-priced hats in the
United States and Great Britain. Table 8 indicates that, in lieu of the
present duty of 60 per cent on foreign value, a duty of 88 per cent on
foreign value is required to equalize the costs incurred with respect
to the lower-priced hats; and Table 9, that a duty of 55 per cent on
foreign value will suffice to equalize such costs in the case of the
higher-priced hats. In other words, the record establishes the need, if
competitive costs are to be equalized under section 315, for creating
two classes of men's sewed straw hats, with a different principal
competing country and a separate rate of duty for each class. Under the
circumstances, to confine the findings of the commission to an increased
duty on lower-priced hats is, in one important particular, to fall short
of the statutory responsibility undertaken when the commission ordered
an investigation of the adequacy of the present 60 per cent ad valorem
duty as a measure of equalized costs in the United States and foreign
countries. A partial conclusion from the commission's data, where, as
he