There is now, and there always will be, a storm of conflicting opinion about any tariff revision.  We can not go far wrong when we base our tariffs on the policy of preserving the productive activities which enhance employment and add to our national prosperity.

Again comes the reminder that we must not be unmindful of world conditions, that peoples are struggling for industrial rehabilitation and that we can not dwell in industrial and commercial exclusion and at the same time do the just thing in aiding world reconstruction and readjustment.  We do not seek a selfish aloofness, and we could not profit by it, were it possible.  We recognize the necessity of buying wherever we sell, and the permanency of trade lies in its acceptable exchanges.  In our pursuit of markets we must give as well as receive.  We can not sell to others who do not produce, nor can we buy unless we produce at home.  Sensible of every obligation of humanity, commerce and finance, linked as they are in the present world condition, it is not to be argued that we need destroy ourselves to be helpful to others.  With all my heart I wish restoration to the peoples blighted by the awful World War, but the process of restoration does not lie in our acceptance of like conditions.  It were better to, remain on firm ground, strive for ample employment and high standards of wage at home, and point the way to balanced budgets, rigid economies, and resolute, efficient work as the necessary remedies to cure disaster.

Everything relating to trade, among ourselves and among nations, has been expanded, excessive, inflated, abnormal, and there is a madness in finance which no American policy alone will cure.  We are a creditor Nation, not by normal processes, but made so by war.  It is not an unworthy selfishness to seek to save ourselves, when the processes of that salvation are not only not denied to others, but commended to them.  We seek to undermine for others no industry by which they subsist; we are obligated to permit the undermining of none of our own which make for employment and maintained activities.

Every contemplation, it little matters in which direction one turns, magnifies the difficulty of tariff legislation, but the necessity of the revision is magnified with it.  Doubtless we are justified in seeking it.  More flexible policy than we have provided heretofore.  I hope a way will be found to make for flexibility and elasticity, so that rates may be adjusted to meet unusual and changing conditions which can not be accurately anticipated.  There are problems incident to unfair practices, and to exchanges which madness in money have made almost unsolvable.  I know of no manner in which to effect this flexibility other than the extension of the powers of the Tariff Commission so that it can adapt itself to it scientific and wholly just administration of the law.

I am not unmindful of the constitutional difficulties.  These can be met by giving authority to the Chief Executive, who could proclaim-additional duties to meet conditions which the Congress may designate.