New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-01-17

ditiOns submitted in the bill.
-------
MR. HELLS And THE UOOL-GROWERS.
Edward Ill, King by that grace of God
which gives nations rulers with sense and pat
riotism enough to develop the industry OF their
realms, summoned parliament to make laws
for the encouragement Of the wooden manufac-
ture of England. For five centuries the system
Of protection to the wOol-growers and wool
manufactures, which this wise monarch inaugu-
rated, was continued by succeeding British
sovereigns and parliaments without break.
Monument of legislative labor in behalf
of national industry, the abstract of
the British statutes relating to the
growing and manufacturing of wool enum-
crates three hundred and elercn lars, all tend
ing inexOrably to one Obiect-the encourage
ment of cloth-maling in England. One of
those statutes required that al black cloth and
mourning material worn at funerals should be
made of British wool exclusively. Another of
them, thoroughly carried into effect for $50
years, and which was in operation close down
to the present century, required that every per-
son buried in England should he buried in
a shrOud composed of wooden cloth ex-
clusively, and Of British cloth. Talk of
Protection On the application of the London
and Canterbury wooden weayers, the wearing
in Great Britain of Indian cotton calicOes was
forbidden by law. Afterward, when the rising
cotton manufacture gave cause for apprehen-
sion that the great national wooden industry
might be intcrfered WITH the use in Great
Britain of British printed calicOes was restricted
by statute to those of a single cOlor-bue.
Surely, such legislation would seem to have
exhausted the resources of Protection But it
was supplemented and braced by the policy of
the great commercial companies of England.
The all-pOwerful East India Company, holding
the key to bOundless markets, by rule that
was inflexible, and in operation down to 1925,
required that both the material and the manu-
facture of all the cloth it exported should be
English.
Yes, these British statesmen were great men
and greatly in earnest. The five centuries of
continued protection which the wool and wooden
interests of Great Britain received were founded
on the sentiment embodied by wise com
mOner in these words: "The encouragement of
"Our wool manufacture is emnently the fOunda
"tion of English riches, the flower and strength,
"the revenue and the blood of England.n Tho
"wool-saclln upon which the Lord Chancellor
of England has for ages sat as the presiding
officer of the House of Lords, is the symbol of
the Importance which the nation and its gov
eminent has for ages attached to their wooden
industry.
See how, on the contrary, this great interest
is treated by an American Government official.
Commissioner Wells argues in his report that
the farmers of the United States east Of the
Mississippi cannot compete in the production of
wool with California, New-Mexico, Texas, Min
nesota, and Iowa, and that they had better give
up wool growing! And he adds: "The in
"quiry, therefore, becomes pertinent one, as
"to what protection the wool-grower of New
England, New York, and Ohio expects to OBJ
"tain, as against the competing woods of other
"parts of the United States, which are already
Offered in the market at about the same price
as the foreign Mestiza wOOl9 And more es-
"pecially when it is considered that those cheap
domestic woods are to receive, under the pro-
posed increase of rates, an ad valorem pro-
lection, and tariff stimulus as much in ex-
"cess OF that given to the woods of New
England, New-York, and Ohio as the pro-
"ducing cost OF the former is proper
"tionately inferior to that of the lat
ter. In short, is it not evident
that any advantage to be derived from an
increased duty on foreign wool-putting it as
"high as it could in any way be borne-must
"Of necessity be delusive and of temporary
benefit; and that for the future the business
"Of wool growing in the United States is to
abe regulated by climate, soil, and the value
"Of land rather than by any artificial IN
/" fluences resulting from tariff enactmentsi If
4" the wOOl-growers of the older States are wise,
eve believe they viii recognize this necessity.
"and sock 10 hold their own by raising choice