The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-05-12
PROTECTION, WOOL AND WOOLENs.

Joseph Dana Miller Tells What Major
Pangborn Doesn't Know About Them.
To the Editor of the Jersey City Neacs:-
Every now and then in the columns of
the Journal. Mr.. Pangborn writes an
editorial illustrating what he doesn't
know about the tariff. His sources of
misinformation are voluminous. When
he hasn't direct access to these he can be
trusted to manufacture his own inaccur-
acies. In the art of misstating things the
major, like most protectionisus, is an
adept.
Under the above heading the Journal
last Wednesday night, attempted to
show that protection has benefited the
wool and woollen industry of this
try. The returns for protection for 1890
january, February, March, April-are
not all in yet. So Iar they disclose for
the past four months failures in the
woollen industry in the city OF Philadel-
phia alone involving an amount of in
debtedness greater h a that ~chronicled
by like failures in the whole United
States for any previous year, with but
two exceptionsl This is the way the pro-
lection boom has set in for 1890. Last
month the Tif1in Woollen Mills, the
largest in northern Ohio, shut down. The
superintendent, Mr.. Waugh, who states
that he has been u lifelong Republican,
unhesitatingly lays the responsibility OF
such shutting down to the high duties
upon foreign woods.
And what about the wool raisers He
stands stupidity wondering what has be-
come of the market for woods. And what
has become OF it? Why, it has been lost
in the protected market for shoddy. The
woolen industry is being auctioned out
going, going, third and last time-wait
Tor McKinicy's bid-gone! It only needs
a prohibitory duty on woods 10 kill the
wooden industry completely.
Mr.. Pangborn's figures, carefully culled
from Republican sources of facts chat are
not so, leads the Major to the conclusion
that i'll a period OF twenty years of protec-
tion the number of wooden manufactures
in the United States was almost doubled,
capital invested nearly quadrupled, and
the value OF the total product nearly
doubled. But the figures show nothing
OF the kind. The error lies in one word.
Thai word is woolens. Twenty-three per
cent. of the wooden output OF this ountry
is shoddy-not to mention other materials
of adulteration. AS Shoddy makers we
are ahead of the world. 1t is an industry
fostered by the tariff, and protectionists
are entitled to whatever credit they can
extract from it.
Mr.. P~angbOrn asserts that the cost of
all wooden fabrics to the purchaser has
been materially reduced below the cost
of the same articles in 1860. That is at
tributed to protection. Why not attribute
it to the fifteenth amendment or to the
transit of venus? Inventions and i'm
provements in machinery reduce cost in
production and result in decreased
prices. Thirty years of this process in
rhe wooden industry, under the guidance
of the most expert and inventive people
in the world, in the matter of machinery,
ought to have accomplished something
in the way of decreased cost. Then, too,
we have the finest shoddy machinery in
the world, and there has been a steady
improvement in this department.. A diff
ferent | OF machinery is required in
the making of shoddy than that de-
mande Tor the manufacture OF honest
Woolens.
One more word as to the effect upon
the American farmer, of the passage of a
law permitting the free importation of
foreign Wools to mix with native woods.
This is, for all practical consideration,
the only use to which such woods would
DO put. 1t would in consequence enable
the farmer TO get more for mis- woods. 1t
is the testimony Of George William Bond,
Of Boston, recognized as one of the fore
most wool n wooden experts in the
country, himself a jealous pro-
tectionist that the price of
American wool has ruled higher In
times of low duties upon imported woods.
This would be the effect of free wool.
But the price of native and foreign wool
would rule lower, and in this difference
wooden manufacturer and employee and
consumer would participate. Precisely
in what proportion the amount thus
saved would be divided it is of course i'm
possible to say. But it's worth saving.
since the present high rates Of duty upon
imported woods benefit neither manufac-
turer, his employees, nor the consumer,
and are appreciation only to the great
sheep herders of the Northwest, who
raise inferior qualities of wool upon pub
lie lands, for the use OF which they pay
nothing, and hire labor at a cost which
stands them in about fifty cents annu-
ally for each sheep!
There are other considerations entering
into this wool tariff, but which / have
not the time to go into. But it is a shame
to have the people of Jersey City suppose
thai the journal knows anything on the
tariff or cares to find out anything about
it. JOSEPH DANA MILLER.
oMamma,s Gittin Better.D