The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-02-03
FREE TRADE AGAIN.
Mr.. Paul Makes Clear Some
MiscOi captions.
ARRAY OF FACTS AND FIGURES.
A Plea For Voters to Investigate the
True Inwarnness nr the TaIiH
on Wool.
By ]. II. PAUL.

In Saturdays HERALD, g lnuary 21st
there appeared an article by n. ThOmp
son, in which, by misunderstanding
and u thin combination of the figure;
gave, the gentleman arrives at some
truly astonishing results. He makes
an effort to cause my figures to appear
ridiculous, for the prlrposei of raising Z
laugh among wool men: nevertheless
| shall deal as charitablY with his
mistakes as plain statement of the
t'uth will admit. The main part oil
my labor, it will be seen. consists simply
OF quoting from standard works on
political economy for the purpose of
teaching the leaders of the pro-.tarift
faction here, the A, B, G, of the fnan-
cial aspects of the wool tariff. His
first remark l snall not answer; for it
may be. as he says, that sheep, with
their necessary appurtenances, average
$40 per head, though the figure seems to
me far too high But his next idea
that the increased price of home made
WOODEN cloth ($Sl ,00O,0O0l due to the
tariff, represents that amount of profit
to the manufacturers, is rather rich
That amount is loss, caused by the
extra price he has to pay for his wool
chemicals, dyes, and a score of other
things. He thinks gave that amount
as profit, aud upon this crude blunder,
he proceeds with luoicrous gravity to
lob 2 hDf n 70
tory.
He next cannot understand how
$l75 900 OUU can be saved out of ISL COO
00U, or further on $75 00G 0CU out OF
ST GOO 600. Neither can Tor did my
figures indicate that such could be the
case. My figures show y loss of SIG :
| 600, 900 10 begin with, and include no
statistics Of ready-made clothing, as
these are not obtaina0le; but even this
amount does not represent the con-
sumers' loss, If the cloth passes through
only two transactions before reaching
tse consumer and If each merchant
charges % per cent on the increased
price be ha. to paw for the goods. the
total advanced price to the consumer
will be SIP 0O0.G00. Further, the per
centage charged by the merchants on
the additional cost Oh the cloth IS not
extra profit to them unless their money
was lying Idle until they got this chance
10 invest it. 1t would have been vastly
more profitable to the merchants to
buy twice the amount of goods under
the cheaper rate; their goods would
then have come within the reach of SO
many more people. that there is little
doubt that their own profits would have
been greater. In the case of raw
material like wool, The tariff falls on
the consumer with a many times in
creased cost. The price is advanced
again and again by the Wool-dealer,
the manufacturer, the clothes dealer,
| the tailor, each of whom must have q
greater profit in proportion to The
greater capital which the wool duty
makes it necessary for him to employ"
| (Taussig) This principle is so generally
understood that hardly another civil
lied country, whatever its general
policy attempts to protect wool. Eng
land, Germany, France, Austria and
Italy, all of whom grow large qusntlsies
of wool, admit this material free of
duty.
rne following is from the economist
| Schoenhof: "a tax on raw materials
| is equal to its own amount, plus the
usual percentage of gross profit, null
|
through which it has to pass until it
reaches the consumer in the finished
state. A. projection of SIS, 100000 on
wool keeps swelling and swelling at
each intermediate stage until it may be
called nearer 500 0G0 900, when it goes
into consumption in its most finish, d
state, without any adequate advantage
to manufacturer, workingman, or con-
| sumner"
The above will answer all Mr.. Thomp-
sons objections TO my hgurees, which,
oy the way, are only illustrative esti-
mates, as direct statistics on these
points cannot be obtained. l expected
when gave the figures that the wool
men would at once assert what many
OF them must know TO be true-that
they do not realize $22 100000 Year
from the tariff, though the price OF
WOO lens is doubled thereby that Il e
tariff has lowered the price of wool.
as evidenced by the comparatively es
of wool before and since the tariff oI
1867 This was the footing l desired
for the controversy. But they cling 10
Il delu>ion; they think the tariff sup
ports them. The figures showed that
if the tariff does what they think it
does it taxes many dollars from, the
public for every one it gives to them.
But while the expense OF the tariff to
the country at large is admitted by sill.
its use to the wool-growers is oenit d
by many; and if the whole country is
being thus robbed, and if, as seems very
likely, not even the wool-growers are
getting any benefit from the robbery,
is it not high time for voters 70 investi-
gate?
1t is said that the tariff changes of
1883 have already been very disastrous
to the wool-growers, in that they have
caused a decrease of 100000 in the
total number OF sheep in the United
Ststes. l dosnot think this decrease is
wholly due to the changes in the tariff
nor that it represents SO much loss ID
the sheep growers. Mr.. Thompson
says, Then LOOK at the risk the sheep
men run through hard winters and
dIouths %es Some of our sheep
men are offering half their sheep for
wintering the other half, and the end
is not YET" Here, then, we have a
very coed explanation of at least q
large part of the dlminution in the