The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-09-05
Facts about Wool.
a loss.

Great stress is laid by democratic
speakers and newspapers on the fact
that notwithstanding the protective
duty the price of wool has steadily de-
clined since 1867. Well, what of that?
Has not the price of iron and steel and
other protected articles also declined
with growing competition and increased
production? The advocates of pro-
lection maintain, and the facts sustain
them, that local competition, supply
and demand, will regulate prices; that
through the operation of these agencies
the duty levied on foreign goods can
not be, and in fact is not, added to
domestic products that can and ought to
be raised or made in this country. The
price of steel rails, grain, nails, clothing
and multitude of other articles all
prove this. The increasing domestic
production of wool, under adequate
protection up to 1884, very naturally
sent the price down, as the price of
wheat or corn has gone down under
increased production.
simultaneously with this great in
crease in the domestic wool product
there was tremendous development
of this industry in Australasia, South
Africa and South America. Indeed, the
product of wool throughout the world
it is supposed has been doubled within
the last ten years. About 500 200, 900
pounds were exported from Australasia
last year, and also the product of So
600, 900 sheep from the Argentine Re-
public. Without any lowering of the
barriers raised against this foreign
deluge, the price of wool must have
inevitably declined, but it need not
necessarily and probably would not
have fallen to price that would make
sheep husbandry Improbable.
In the general development and i'm
provement of this branch of agriculture,
the average weight of fleece had risen
from two and one-half and three pounds
to five and one-half and six pounds, so
that, Notwithstanding the fall in the
price of wool, the farmers were getting
about as much money per sheep as they
had received when prices were higher.
Great improvements had been made in
raising mutton breeds, so that in the
number, quality and price of lambs,
with the increased weight of fleece,
more money was actually realized, even
in Vermont, from the smaller tlocks
than from the larger ones of the earlier
decades.
Now at this critical period, when
there was a steady gain in the domestic
focks and more than proportionate
growth in the wool product, and the
country was rapidly nearing the time
when it would raise all the wool needed
to clothe its inhabitants, when also a
vast volume of foreign wool grown in
regions where the cost of pasturage
and shepherd service is a mere baga-
telle was pressing against the tariff bar
rier, congress made the fatal mistake
of reducing the wool duty about two
cents a pound. 1t was slight lower
ing of the barrier, but it was
enough to allow the floods of trop-
ical wool to sweep over. The dis
astrous results of this mistake are
shown by the official statistics given in
an article in last weeks issue. If so
small a reduction of the duty on wool
had the effect in three years to shrink
the flocks more than 100000 sheep
and the annual wool product more than
40,OOO, 900 pounds, what would be the
probable fate of domestic wool-growing
if this rising deluge of tropical woo
should be admitted entirely free OF
duty, as the president and the democ,
racy propose to admit it? Is it not as
clear as the sunlight that the domestic
production would be utterly engulfed?
Now the Reformer, or Mr.. Shurtleff
does not need to publish or recite elab
crate and confusing tables of figures
about workmen," "wages," per
centages," averages" etc., etc., t.