Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1889-09-26
l.lne lhe Duae cd York.nlre.


A choice little ditty very popular with
members of the late Delaware Legislature,
and containing On indefinite number of
stanzss which bear remarkable SINH.
larity to each other, starts of thus:
The Duke Of Yorkshire he had thousand
men,
He marched them up the hill and he marched
them down again;
When they were up they were up. and when
they were down they were down,
And when they were half way up they were
neyother up nor down
The resolutions adopted by the wooden
manufacturers at Boston, printed in
another column, are on par with these
brilliant military evolutions OF the
apocryphal Duke of Yorkshire. The
manufacturers, or at least q great many
OF them, would like to have free wool,
confident that with the unrestricted right
to buy their wool on the same terms as
foreign manufacturers they could not
only hold their own in the home market
which they are not doing all along the
line now-but could likewise compete
with more favored manufacturers in
outside markets. Indeed in some lines and
in some localities the question ia rapidly
narrowing down to one of free wool or
closed mills. The hardship OF the situa.
tion, especially on the carpet makers, is
that the United States produces no carpet
woods. They must come from abroad,
and SO must other woods that the manu-
factnrer must have to mix with the do
mestic clip. The temper OF consumers,
Republicans and Democrats alike, will
not brook an advance of duty on manu-
featured goods; while, on the other hand,
few hundred sheep raisers in the pos
sibly debateable state Of Ohio have begun
to kick against any reduction of the tariff
on the wool itself. So the perplsxed
manufacturers, lacking either the courage
or the harmony to take the tuil-or
rather the randy the horns, have sim
ply done the Duke Of Yorkshire act
marched up the hill and then marched
down again. They do not demand"
lower rates of duty on wool and other
materials, but are willing to leave
WHOLLY to the wisdom of Congress the
determination OF those rates; while they
do demand" however, "a revision of
the tariff in which there shall in every
instance be placed upon the manutac-
tured product the full amount Of duty
necessary to compensate whatever rates
of duty public policy may require to be
imposed upon the raw material; and then
they go on to intimate that if the tariff on
wool is to be left as II is, the manutac-
tuners would like about 90 per cent more
protection" on the finished product
which would be equivalent to giving the
american consumer about 25 per cent
more shoddy in his clothing or making
him pay an advance Of % per cent. With
what sense of burlesque, after this,
comes in the ''solemn and emphatic pro.
test" against making the wooden industry
''any longer the football OF politics !"
Why, if it were not for the politics in it,
wouli any business interest in the
country stultity itself for moment by
advocating os acceiing to q continuance
of high tariff taxation of wool OF any
hind, and especially Of carpet woods
which are not produced in America?
Texas, whose people own as mauy
sheep as are grown in all New
England, Now York, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, has, through her congress-
men, voted solidly for free wool for g
dozen years past. Protection in wool
and or wooden manufacturers, as in
everything else, has, as contemporary
well says, "beeu steadily degenerating
into the mere plsything Of the greed of
monopoly; but the time has como when
the conaumers are about to speak, and
they will speak Enthusiastically for protec
tion to industry by free raw materials
cheapened and enlarged products and
vastly cheapened necessNries Of life" Talk
ofnct making the wool tariff "the football
of politics" indeed. Why it is all politics.
and the moment business and common
sense get the upper hlrd o. politics the
suicidal trade policy OF taxing raw ma
terials will be doomed.