Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-03-04
THE TARIFF ON WOOL.
Another Review of the Paper of
David Brown.

Another Review of the Paper OF
David BrOwn. J.
David sets out BY stating he is a wool-grower
and protectonist, but it locks much, very
much, like such protection as wolves give to
sheep. The wool-growers' convention felt it
to be SO, and it was replied to at the time in
severe manner, and it was published against
the request of the secretary of the society.
Many of US know David Browns situation
close to the National road, few miles west of
Bridgeport and Wheeling and with hay at SIS
to $40 per ton, he can't afford to raise wsol at
Soc. per pound.
Wool-growing has been practically abandon
cd, east of st. Clairsyille, where there is a
good road to get out with hay; but many of US
farmers are away from public roads too far to
haul hay to market, with ground too billy to
farm or raise grain, in competitor with our
western plains, gang plows and self-binders.
Wool-growing is almost question of life and
death with US.
If the present depression is to continue, our
lands in the western part of the county are
valued much too high To pay the present rate |
of taxation at current prices of wool, and keep |
family, would very much perple1 (on a COM |
mon sized farm) my friend Brown, with all his |
tariff fgures-which figures prove just as much
and more for absolute free trade as for the |
tariff of 1883.
He says wool, from the passage of the tariff
of 1861, for seven years averaged 81 &c. per
pound; but under the high tariff of 1864, about
and after the close of the war; for several years
wool averaged soc. l was selling wool all
these years and my recollection does not agree
with these figures. We all know that the war
had much to do with the price of wool; the cur
rency also. Much of that time it took gear 81
of paper money to purchased 81 of gold. The
duties being paid in coin we're practically
oubled, measured by our CURRENCY. Many
other factors have entered into the plice of
wool, compared with years ago. The hay that
fed the sheep prier to 1860 was mown with the
scythe and raked with hand rake. England
has colonized the vast continent of Australia,
sent the Aerino sheep there, and New Zealand
and other isleS of the sea. South America,
the Platte river country, where thousands of
cattle few years ago were slaughtered for
their hides and tsllow, have gone into the sheep
business. So that to-day large consignments
of clothing-wool are made to our Boston and
New York merchants, on which they have to
pay 10 to IL cents per pound for the privilege
of selling, and then under r-sell u.s. Take this
protection off and where would we be?.
Oh, David says, 1 am not in favor of that;
but the trouble is his argument and figures all
tend in that direction. To help the thing along,
he cites the example of most of the nations of
Europe. where there is such dense population
that most of them cannot raise bread and meat
enough for their people. Great Britain, with
here twenty-four millions of people, by the aid
of machinery doing the work of more than one
hundred millions, has been letting the raw
material of all countries in free to run her
factories. But now she is solving the problem
by raising the raw material in her own colonies.
Heretofore it would have been as foolish for
Great Britain to have taxed the material to run
her factories for US to tax tea and coffee that
we cannot produce. 1t is simply tax when it
cannot be produced in a country.
David has another panacea for our ills. He
says, raise two pounds where we raised one be-
FORE Supply and demand rules the market
That is, l suppose, double the supply wont effect
the market any, and we will have double the
money.
We read of Job having greater number Of
sheep than any of US are able to keep together
hope that in these long ages we have improv-
ed the length and number of fbres to the
square inch; but if David will just come out
and show us how we are to double the quantity
grown on a sheep, and keep the secret in our
own county, he could double his salary as pres
ident of national bank. No, David, we have
been studying and working at that problem
from the days of Job to the present, and when
We solve it, it will be very apt to increase the
worlds supply of wool, and thereby lessen the
price, There is not much doubt that to take
the tariff off supply and demand is the true rule
Brother farmers, it is high time for US to
organize. Come up to st. Clairsville on the
9Th of March, and let our power and influence
be felt by our legislators. There is bill now
pending to reduced the rates on secured cloth
ing wool from 80 to 20 cts. per pound. 1t must
be evident to US all that without protection we
cannot pursue the business against the perpet-
ual verdure of the south latitude, with their
cheap labor and cheap lands. Hours labor
cost US about the same as days. They have no
winter to contend with. If our legislators per-
sist in policy that will destroy our iocks,
some of these days we may be engaged in
foreign war. When our hocks are gone, it is
the work OF years to replenish them; with the
seas blockaded, where is our supplies to come
from? 1t is not even good policy in time of
peace to send the gold out of our country for
something we can produce at home.
n. B. NICHOLS.