The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1869-11-19
THE PARsEE LETTERS.
No. ID.

10 Horace Greeley:
SAnrB: The principal topic in the
so. called manufacturing world Of this
country, at the present moment, is the
extreme depression in the woolen
goods trade Prices, / was told, arc
lower now in greenbacks than they
were before the war III gold. / at
once thought it good opportunity to
see whether / cannot find something
cheap to suit India. Now, the articles
we use in India are light cloth, called
Spanish stripes. and good, fine broad
cloth, which we send to Persia and to
Simla. had no difficulty in finding
the wooden manufacturers; ard it il
also perfectly true that the woolen
trade is In great distress. At
ter many fruitless inquiries, at last
found that goods suitable to my mar
ket were not among the woolen manu-
factured articles of this country. j
| therefore showed great wooden man
ufacturing sahib my samples of cloth
for Persia and the Spanish stripes,
and made inquiries whether it could
be made here. / was convinced al
once that the superior American intel.
lgence could produce the goods / de-
sired but the price quoted was out oi
all reason compared with that in Eng
land and Germany.
lyon see" said the wooden sahib,
1.-THE difficulty is. the goods you order
Of me by this sample are partly made
of foreign wool, and that pays high
duty" "Well, then" said / "makC
it purely of American wool, which il
raised ut home" Said the sahib: IT
cannot be done--we must have foreign
wool for mixing. But even il it could
be made altogether of home grown
wool, the price would be higher. We
are peculiarly situated. Our tariff ha,
made our native wool dearer TO US, be
cause we cannot, rs we would, import
/ foreign wool. This has in some meas
ure had the effect, like the increased
production of wool IN the world, X
lower the price Of wool in Europe
Therefore, we. the Americans, are one
cause of enabling the Europeans Il
get up cheaper woolens; and, although
on heavy, very heavy goods, our tarif
entirely shuts foreigners out, yet il
fine cloths, such rs you desire, they
can actually afford to pay the duty and
beat us, because our tariff II 30 curl
olls that, while the duty ON coarse
flannel is nearly 100 per cent, on fine
light broadcloth, at So yard, it i
only 40 per cent. Thus, you see we
are deprived of importing the raw
wool, because the duty thereon is from
80 to 40 per cent. and we are, after
all, not enough protected to keep oui
fine cloth, cassimeres, &c, &c. A.
for manufacturing for Bombay, that
of course, is impossible. The dut,
on raw material is more than reason
for not doing it, il nothing else were.
"And were you an advocate for thii
tariff 2" saidsI.
Yes, i was" he answered. -
country can be tariff mad. We were
all for it, all the woolen manufacture
ers. But we see plainly that this il
the chief, if not the only cause of oui
present troubles. We, moreover, see
that we were made the jackals for 9th
er monopolists. A light is dawnine
upon us. Our motto now is free raw
material, tariff for revenue only, ano
fair competition for all corners"
It may be useful to you, o Greeley
sahib, to know that these formerly
blind followers of your doctrine, arr
becoming heretics. The loss to me
not being able to buy Spanish stripes
land broadcloth, is only trife com
pared with the loss yonr great caus,
will sustain if all the woolen sahib
adopt the motto of my informant.
Respectfully, A. CuRIosrBHoY.
Parsee Merchant of Bombay.