Show protection AND DEBASE foia FOB sometime gome time past the new york world has baa been publishing letters from prominent writers on economics relating to the question of tariff at first it published a series of communications favorable to the mckinley bill and to the principle of protection as an american political doctrine now it is publishing letters from brorn men advocating f free ree trade or rather tariff reform the first of the series on this side is from the pen of david A wells of norwich conn a well known and able writer on political eCO economy DOMY his letter is a carefully prepared one and confined entirely to the tariff on wool it covers very nearly one whole page of the world and from the care and study given to its compilation it will doubtless doubt les figure as an influential campaign document on the he side of the tariff reformers but mr wells takes a new and original view of the question in fact he traces a connection between tariff and disease the united states grow annual annually y about five pounds of wool per capita of the population while nine and one half pounds per capita is ostensibly consumed no other fibre fabre entering into textile fabrics has so great a variety of qualities as wool in the tropics it approaches hair bair in that respect in moist cool climates it resembles silk while in southern russia and western asia the wool is only adapted for rugs or carpets owing to its coarseness hence mr wells concludes that it to is nature and not legislation which determines ter mines what kind of wool a country shall produce no country he contends can produce wools of all grades therefore the united states in attempting this try to do want is impossible and since the various grades of wool required for different varieties of manufacture can never r be obtained at home mr M W wells ells thinks it to is absurd to aftem attempt lt offe offsetting etting a climatic defect by a protective tariff independent of this the people need wool more than is grown at home the exclusion of foreign wools causes this deficiency fici ency to be made good largely from shoddy shoddy is the name given to the fibrous material obtained by tearing or grinding up old woolen fabrics of all kinds this material is still further classified according to its degree of disintegration disc diec Integ integration cation as mungo waste 21 devils dirt and so on at one time shoddy was made in europe and shipped here as woolen raw material in 1867 a 1 duty I uty of per cent was imposed on all shoddy arid ard on cloth manufactured from it of course this shut it out completely the arguments used por for its exclusion were that the rags from which it was made were collected from prisons hospitals hospital lazar houses and dumping grounds and of course must necessarily propagate disease in this country the rhe restrictive jalof jaw of 1867 became almost prohibitive of shoddy and american manufacturers began to produce it at home they beg began ian to import woolen rags rage from europe in 1870 pounds were imported in 1880 pounds and in 1889 pounds tb thus us giving an increase in the importation of eight hundred per cent of disease laden rags in nine years though mr wells admits that in tbt th process of tearing cleaning scouring and steaming hobt of the original ima purifies puri ties of the rags rage can be and are re moved yet he claims that owl owing na to thap 0 manufacturer these pro processes cermes are IT im perfectly performed and that there ie danger to health in wearing clothes made from shoddy i M wells also traces a direct connection between disease and tariff HW he says that owing to the absence of wool en clothing in the united states taj th morality from consumption and anea monia is greater than from any other cause the rate per deaths an dually exceeding that of the cold and wet climates of the british isles i in in the united 1880 states in ev every r deatha there were frob fro consumption and over from puen anen monia for the same year in englan En glands and wales the corresponding ngar figurea were for consumption and oyer over for pneumonia thus it will be seen that mr wei VI considers tariff reform from a sanita sanitary point of view as well as from an eco mic side his observations are worth worthya wor thys the attention of scientific men and aar far as they relate to shoddy should b generally considered i |