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Show SHEBP IN WYOMING. Wc find iu The Forum for May a long article on tho sheep Question by Paul S. Richards, "A Wyoming Sheep Man." Mr. Richards goe3 into the question of raising wool in Wyoming vcrv thoroughly. Ho traces the business from year to year, showing the good vcarsj and tho bad years, and he makes a computation of the cost of raising wool in Wyoming, which is discouraging discourag-ing indeed. He shows that the total cost of runninc a band of twenty-five hundred ewes for one year was $1737.50, or $LS0 a head. Adding all the costs that would accrue, he reckons in round, numbers that $2 a head is tho cost of carrying a band of sheep through tho year in that Stale. Ho reckons that the amount which he would receive for wool and .in the salo of lambs and muttons is $5215.37; that is. the profit is $227.S7 on tho vear's business. This is a narrow nar-row margin indeed, and this, it is to be remembered, is on the basis of an average year. It makes no allowance for interest on money, and there is no specific item sot forth for the grazing privileges. Ho therefore concludes that the sheep business in Wyoming is "u sick industry." Naturally Mr. Richards is opposed to tho reduction of the tariff on wool, lie argues also that the drop in the price of wool docs not. give an' relief in the matter of the prico of clothing; for he sa3's "wc have seen a drop in tho urice of wool in two years from 22 cents to 12 cents without any lowering in the prico of woolen clothing," and he notes furthor, "we havo seen the placincr of hides o;n tho frco list followed fol-lowed by a rise in the price of shoes." Hero Mr. Richards is on solid ground. Ho takes precisely the position that Tho Tribune has been taking all along upon these questions. We have insisted insist-ed and have 'shown in the matter of tea, coffee, and some other articles of trade, that when the tariff was put on there was naturally a rise in the price of the article to the ultimate consumer, con-sumer, but when the tariff was taken off. there was no chango whatever; in fact, in the case of coffee there was an actual raise in the price on the pretense pre-tense that the coffco crop was short, iust as Mr. Richards points out that tho taking off of the tariff on hides did not have tho expected effect of lowering tho price of shoes, but, on the contrary", shoes are higher in prico than before. The same general result would no doubt be shown in sugar as well. as in reciprocitj' articles generally. Mr. Richards 's articlo is a complete verification of tho position taken by us heretofore on all this matter, aud we think that he is about right when he saya that to take the tariff off from wool would not lower the prico of clothing to the individual who buys a woolen suit. The truth is that tho prices of pretty much everything in this country have got into grooves whoreby the dealers are enabled to coutrol the prices without regard to legislation, and we doubt very much whether tho taking of the tariff off from wool would, in fact, reduce the nrice of woolen clothes. It seems likelv that cotton coods would be re duced somewhat in price if the unreasonable un-reasonable aud exorbitant tariff was taken off from some forms of cotton eoods: but it is by no means eertain that this would be the case. . The report re-port of the Tariff Board showed that the cotton mills in this country are usinir worn-out and antiquated machinery, ma-chinery, and are not up to date in the economic production of cotton fabrics, the manufacturers apparently dopend-intr dopend-intr upon tho tariff to protect thorn in wasteful manufacturing methods and in the employment of inefficient ma-chinory. ma-chinory. To take off some of the tariff on cotton goods would probably cure this defect, and would compel the cotton cot-ton manufacturers to have machinery up to date aud introduce the best economic processes iu tho production of their coods. The article by Mr. Richards on the production of wool in Wyoming probably prob-ably would serve very largely for a corresponding statement of the cost of wool raising in Utah aud' other of the mountain State's, arid so serving., it oucrht to cause very serious reflection, not only in the minds of the wool raisers rais-ers and of Congress, but of the woolen manufacturers of this country; for these" woolen manufacturers are convicted con-victed by tho Tariff Board of substantially substan-tially the same waste and lack of en-i en-i ternrise that the manufacturers of cot-, cot-, ton aoods exhibit, and wc cannot doubt that, a system of distribution which would bo iust and fair to the wool- raiaer. to the manufacturer, and to the I oublic. could be devised by thr expert I onimon of this country that would yf 1 ford substantial relief to tliose who rais.0 wool, and those who buy woolen iroods and woolen clothes. |