realization that when the courts reverse an administrative adjudication they assume a burden which the statute places on other shoulders. For if the adjudication of the administration is set aside, a new decision must be reached by the courts. In annulling a regulation, on the other hand, the task of the court is completed.

There is no doctrine that an administrative regulation is immune from the power of the courts to review. It is true the courts themselves, in declining to revise administrative adjudications, frequently assert that the administrative action is not subject to judicial examination and revision, but this limitation upon their reviewing power is self-imposed, and it may be discarded whenever they deem it prejudicial to the interests which the Constitution was designed to protect. In the Monongahela Bridge case, Mr. Justice Harlan notes that "learned counsel for the defendant suggests some extreme cases, showing how reckless and arbitrary might be the action of executive officers," and makes reply as follows:

It will be time enough to deal with such cases as and when they arise. Suffice it to say, that the courts have rarely, if ever, felt themselves so constrained by technical rules that they could not find some remedy, consistent with the law, for acts, whether done by government or by individual persons, that violated natural justice or were hostile to the fundamental principles devised for the protection of the essential rights of property.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

THOMAS REED POWELL.

'Monongahela Bridge Company v. United States, 216 U. S. 177 (1910). In this case Mr. Justice Harlan declared: "It was not for the jury to weigh the evidence and determine, according to their judgment, as to what the necessities of navigation required, or whether the bridge was an unreasonable obstruction. The jury might have differed from the secretary. That was immaterial; for Congress intended by its legislation to give the same force and effect to the decision of the secretary of war that would have been accorded to direct action by it upon the subject." The function of the court was held to be limited to ascertaining whether the executive officers conform their action to the mode prescribed by Congress.

Though the courts are often deaf to the plea that the administrative decision is erroneous, they will always entertain a complaint as to the procedure by which that decision was reached. Chin How v. United States, 208 U. S. 8 (1908). Cf. 22 Harvard Law Review, 360.

THE TARIFF BOARD'S REPORT ON WOOL AND

TH

WOOLENS

HE Tariff Board's report on Wool and Manufactures of Wool presents data on so many phases of the industry that any one of a half-dozen different topics might well be selected for analysis and discussion. The report is published in four volumes with a total of 1222 pages, and there is, besides, a general index of 58 pages. It consists of five main parts and a short summary of "Findings." Part I, "Glossary on Schedule K," presents an analysis of the duties and of the imports and exports of the various commodities affected and a statistical survey of the industry at home and abroad. Part II deals with raw wool: its cost of production, its shrinkage, and a survey of the conditions under which it is produced in different countries. Part III is a study of the cost of production of tops, yarns and fabrics. Part IV consists of a report on the ready-made clothing industry. Part V deals with labor conditions, wages and the efficiency of labor and machinery in the United States.

The main object of the inquiry conducted by the board was to furnish a basis for the adjustment of duties, and it proceeded on the theory enunciated in the Republican platform of 1908, that protective tariff duties should be based on differences in comparative costs of production at home and abroad. Accordingly, an analysis of its report should seek to discover to what extent it has succeeded in furnishing definite bases for tariff revision, whether its methods are above reproach, and what bearing the results have on the cost-of-production theory of tariff rates. For the purposes of such an analysis, Parts II and III, dealing with the costs of production of raw wool and of manufactures of wool respectively, are the most important, and these will be discussed first and in some detail. The other parts will be described more briefly, but fully enough to acquaint the reader with the general method and the scope of the investigation.

I

Section of the volume on raw wool, after briefly describing the conditions under which wool is raised in the principal woolgrowing countries, proceeds to a study of comparative costs of production in the United States, Australia and South America; section 2 deals with wool shrinkages and the methods of levying duties; section 3, with carpet wools, practically all of which are imported. In the form of addenda are presented special reports on wool-growing in Great Britain, Canada, Australasia, South America, South Africa and in different sections of the United States. Although valuable material is to be found throughout the volume, the first two sections contain all the data of service in the determination of tariff duties.

The Tariff Board presents two possible methods of determining the cost of a pound of wool: (1) by distributing total costs between wool and mutton in proportion to the receipts from each; and (2) by considering wool the chief product and mutton the by-product, subtracting mutton receipts from total operating costs, and designating the remainder as the cost of wool. The first method, to which I shall revert later, the board discards on the ground that "any change in the relation between the receipts from wool and the receipts from mutton would change their respective costs of production." As regards the second method, the board explains that when the receipts from mutton equal the operating costs, the cost of producing a pound of wool as found by this method is nothing; and that when the receipts from mutton exceed the operating costs, it is less than nothing. It concludes, therefore, that this method is "inadmissible because the cost of producing a pound of wool, thus determined, varies with the relative importance of the receipts from wool and mutton"; which is precisely the reason given for discarding the first method. The report goes on to explain, however, that "when wool is the chief source of income and the receipts from mutton are merely incidental and relatively small, this method is approximately correct; but as the receipts from

1 "Mutton" is used throughout to include all products other than wool. 'Report, p. 312.

mutton become relatively more important, the degree of error increases, and when mutton is the chief source of income and the receipts from wool are merely incidental, the futility of the method is clearly apparent."

Consequently the board concludes that the cost of producing a pound of wool cannot be accurately determined, but that "this need occasion no concern, since the bearing of the receipts from wool on the returns from flock husbandry, as carried on in the region under consideration (the principal western sheep-growing states), can be ascertained and the object of this investigation can thus be accomplished." Accordingly, wool is considered

the chief product, and the receipts from mutton are offset against costs. When the receipts from mutton are less than the total flock expense, the difference is called the "net charge against wool." When, on the other hand, the receipts from mutton are greater than the expense, the difference is the "net credit to wool." And this net charge against or net credit to wool, divided by the number of pounds of wool, is the "net charge against or net credit to a pound of wool."

In defence of this method of procedure, the board informs us that "this net charge against or net credit to a pound of wool, taken in its relation to the net selling price of a pound of wool, is, normally, an index to the profit or loss represented by the entire operation."

It will be observed that this method is practically identical with the second method suggested by the board, but declared to be inadmissible on the ground that the cost of wool varies with the relative importance of wool and mutton receipts. There are, indeed, two slight modifications. These are, first, that when mutton receipts exceed total operating costs, the difference is considered a "net credit to wool" and is combined with the net charges to obtain a single figure called the "net charge against or net credit to a pound of wool." The second is that the results do not purport to represent the actual cost of wool, but rather a so-called "charge against" wool, which,

1 Ibid. p. 313.

taken in conjunction with the price of wool, furnishes an index to the profitableness of sheep-raising. Bearing in mind the object of the investigation, i. e. to determine comparative costs of wool-growing in this and foreign countries, on the theory that such data will furnish the basis for fixing a protective import duty on raw wool, let us examine the findings of the board in accordance with this method.

The points with which we are primarily concerned may be summed up in the following table:

The figures in the next to the last line indicate that the net charge to a pound of wool is from ten to eleven cents in our western states, three-tenths of a cent in Australia, and from four to five cents in South America. In the case of the United States and South America, the net charges are not worked out exactly; from "10 to II cents" and from " 4 to 5 cents" is the manner in which they are presented by the board.' In the case of Australia-and this is of peculiar significancethe three-tenths of a cent is worked out exactly from the other figures in the table. In no place does the board attempt to say just what the net charge is in Australia. In the "Findings of the Investigation" it states that "a charge of a very few cents per pound lies against the great clips of that region in the aggregate." In the body of the report it says that there is "little, if any charge against the Australian."3 This charge of three-tenths of a cent means, of course, that the receipts from mutton are practically sufficient to cover the entire cost

1

1 Report, p. 350.

Ibid. p. II.

• Ibid. p. 350.