Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-04-26
THE TARIFF ON WOOL.
Prominent Manufacturers Express Their
Opinion Of the Free Trade Bill.
How the Repeal of the Duty will Ruin the
Wool Interests of this Country.
\. Y. Tribune Boston Special. April 10.

y. Y. Tribune Boston Special April To-
The wool question is discussed by sew
eral prominent manufacturers in the Ere
ming Record The President of the Ma
tional Association of Wooden Manufac-
turers. William Whitman, said. in answer
to the inquiry, What will be the imme-
"diate effect of the repeal of the duty on
wool proposed in the Mills bill?"
1t will operate first to reduce the price
of our home wool materially, and to raise
somewhat the market price of foreign
wool That this result will follow the re-
peal will not be denied by frank spoken
men in the wool business, and have no
doubt that buyers would be guided by
this conviction in their purchases. If
they were satisfied that this bill was soon
to become law, large orders would be
placed in the foreign market to take ad-
vantage of the rise. and orders at home
would be restricted to the absolutely i'm
mediate necessities of the trade The fall
at home. | am convinced. would be much
greater than the corresponding rise abroad
and that the two movements would con-
tinue until a readjusted market level was
reached. As our home product is only
about one-siXth of the total world product
it is inevitable that the falling off here
should be greater than the appreciation
abroad in the final adjustment of the price
level
What effect would this falling off in
price at home have upon the wool grow
ing industry of the country?
AS to that, | speak upon the positive
declarations and assurances of the chosen
representatives of the wool growers and
of individual growers in private advices.
With the present cost of labor, breeding,
and raising. such fall as would result
from this repeal would be prostrating
blow to the industry. TO what extent it
might recover under the changed cOndi-
ton is purely speculative and undeter
mined point.
Would this disaster be limited to the
wool growers alone?
Not at all Such a change as is pro-
posed would depreciate the value of exist
ing stocks. The relative proportion of
such stock to the annual production is far
larger in the wool industry than in the
cotton; for example, large advances have
been made by commission houses to mills
on the strength of such security, III no
small measure, for the ready-money cap
ital of the mills alone is not sufficient for
the needs of this business. All Such ad
yances, say, would be imperiled as well
as the investments of the mills by such
sudden closing of the market, bringing
depreciation, instability, and uncertainty.
What do you think of the economical
propriety of maintaining protection for
the wool growers?
| have never advocated protection for
any industry which cannot be appropri-
ately carried on by the use of the natural
resources of this country with proper re-
muneratiOn for the labor employed. Now
the fact that our wool growing industry
has reached its present proportions, and
that we produce here more than one-sixth
of the worlds product, is solid, irrefuta-
BILE evidence that it is desirable to main
tain and foster such an industry on our
soil With such a product at home. it
would be economically unwise in my
Judgment, to depend on foreign sources
for supply, when the future price and pro-
duet abroad are beyond our foresight and
calculation to measure. BY competition
here the price of wool has fallen, and the
present low price is almost unexampled.
When Joseph Sawyer, of Sawyer, Burt
& Manning, was asked what his views
were in regard to free wool, he replied:
There is no doubt that our American
wool growers would be unable to raise
wool in competition with other countries,
where sheep farming is cheaper. If the
tariff was taken off wool there would in
my opinion be a corresponding advance
in the price of wool in other parts of the
world, for there would be just so much
less produced in this country The for
eign supply could be cornered. We have
seen that done repeatedly. At one time
we had some South American wool atloat,
and between the time of its shipment and
the time of its arrival in Boston it has
doubled in value owing to a corner in the
market The tariff on wool, by encour-
aging its growth in this country, secures
a balance. Another effect of killing the
wool growing interests of this country
would be to stop the production of kind
of wool that is not grown elsewhere,
stronger and better wool for many fabrics
than any that can be got from abroad
4 still more injurious effect would be the
lowering of the grade of many foreign
WOODS, for it is by Importation for breed
ing purposes of high class sheep from Yer
mont and other States of the Union that |
the sheep farmers of Australia and South |
America are able to produce even as good |
wool as they do now