Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-08-04
raH wooL-oRowERs ALREADY
HURT.
Disastrous Effect of the Mills Bill In
Ohio and Pennsylvania

NEWCASTLE. PA-For half a century this
city has been one of the principal wool mar
kets of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern
Ohio. During the past ten years Eastern
capitalists have distributed annually on an
average a million and half dollars in West
ern Pennsylvania alone for wool. Last year
Washington county's clip alone amounted to
!, SOC, 900 pounds. which was worth on last
years average prices 100000 This was
cash paid direct to the farmers of that single
county. Last year there was paid to the
farmers of this and adjacent counties alone
by one man, W. z. Morrison, Sl20, 900 for
WOOL and owing to the effects of the Mills
bill he has not spent one dollar thus far this
year. and not one-half of the wool which has
been clipped through this section has found
buyers thus far this year
Mr.. E. F. Humphrey, of Boston. who for
the past eight years has had agencies in every
county in this wool-growing section
and who arrived here last evening,
was asked TO give his views upon the proba-
BILE effect of the Mills bill upon the wool
industry, and in complying said:
1.-THE agitation of the tariff question has
caused decline in the price of wool and a
decline in the quantity also through here.
Farmers have in many instances sold their
sheep and embarked in other branches of
farm life, and should the Mills bill pass
think the production of choice woods would
he wiped out eventually and especially in
Ohio and Pennsylvania. owing to the fact
that wool equally as choice as can be pro-
duced in Australia much cheaper. The
farmer gets an exceedingly small proportion
of the benefit of free raw material. He buys
comparatively little of wooden goods and it is
not just that he should stand in competition
with the world when the manufacturers are
protected. Further, the farmer depends up
on the wool clip to pay his taxes, and also
for ready money TO meet his debts, and sheep
raising also benefits his farm. He has to put
time, labor, money into what Mr.. Cleveland
calls raw material. and there is every reason
that his industry should be protected and en-
couraged. He works harder than any other
class of citizens, except, perhaps, coal min
ers, and gets, of late years, very little net
profit from his industry upon this particular
article. The sheep industry has done much
to build up Western Pennsylvania and East
ern Ohio, and Washington county is an ex-
emplitication of this assertion.
The largest proportion of the cost of rails
ing wool or manufacturing goods he contin-
ued, is in the labor, and if we expect to
continue these industries under Free Trade
we must cut down wages to the level of
wages paid abroad, which is about so per
cent less than that paid in this country at
present; and, further foreign raisers of wool
have the benefit of cheaper lands and their
manufacturers cheaper money"
In conclusion, Mr.. Humphrey said that he
favored a moderate revision of the tariff, tina,
would offer encouragement to the farmer and
manufacturer of wool instead of discourage.
ment, which the farmers at present are la.
boring under, and from all he could learn
nearly every Democratic farmer in the wool
growing counties would desert Mr.. CLEVELAND
and vote for the gentleman running upon the
protection platform.