Show TilE WOOL TARIFF One of the least defensible of the tariff schedules is that relating to wool Under a pretenso of desiring protection for the farmer the manufacturers of woolens long ago persuaded the wool growers grow-ers to demand a duty of 10 cents a pound on washed wool As a compensation to the cloth manufacturers for having pay this much moro for the wool they used an additional duty of 83 to 50 cents a pound was then placed on Imported woolen clotb The manufacturers did indeed have to pay more for their imported wool than before be-fore but they found it impossible both to pay higher prices for foreign and for homegrown home-grown wool at the same time and still remain re-main in the business of woolen manufacture manufac-ture As they could not lower the price of foreign wool they must either lower the price of homegrown wool or quit the business busi-ness Naturally enough they tried the former alternative and as a result the price of homegrown wool has been falling fall-ing over since the advance in the duties on woolMr Mr GEORGE WILLIAM BOND was employed em-ployed by the treasury department to makeup make-up a series of sets of samples for the use of the appraising officers in tho various custom cus-tom houses The sets furnished by him consisted of 130 separate samples of wool each clearly distinct in class and quality from the rest Now in order that the manufacture of woolens be carried on at all successfully manufacturer must have a great variety of these differing kinds of raw material It is not possible to make good cloth without with-out a considerable admixture of wools Our own country does not produce all the necessary varieties no country does and no other civilized nation besides ours places a tariff on raw wool for this very reason It is not surprising then that the high priced foreign wool which the manufacturer manufac-turer must have causes tho home wool to decline in price so that scarcely a year passes in which foreign wool merchants do not buy up large quantities of wool raised in the United States because it Is often tho cheapest in tho world Though the people of this country use a great deal of fine woolen cloth yet this Is the one country in the world that does not manufacture fine woolen goods to any great J extent and last year we imported about 45000000 worth Senator SHERMAN in 18S3 a protectionist protection-ist said of the effects of the wool tariff IIln 1807 the price of wool was 51 cents j in 1870 46 cents in 1878 which was an abnormal ab-normal year 40 cents per pound This was the result of tho policy of protecting the wool grower as it Is in all industries to gradually reduce the price Under tho operation op-eration of the existing law tho tariff of 1807 tho price of wool has gradually gone down It is perfectly true that the wool tariff has reduced the price of home wool Brad sLrccts summed tho situation up for 1SS9 as follows Prices abroad are 0 to 8 cents higher than they were a year ago and at home they are and have been praotically unchanged That is while foreign manufacturers raised tho price of foreign wool in their competitive bidding for it and even entered en-tered our markets to buy up American wool all this time American woolen mills I running on short time and with disastrous I failures all along the line were unable to consume enough American wool to cause it to advance at all I The alleged protection to the American wool grower is one of the greatest crimes perpetrated by a government upon a long I buffering nation The price of clothing for the whole nation is practically doubled by I it the woolen manufacturers are ruined by I it and the wool grower for whose benefit the tariff is supposed to exist receives on an average no more for his wool the price of which has steadily declined under twenty years of protection |