Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-03-13
ADDRESS TO FARMERS
on THE CAUSES OF Low PRICES, ETC.
The Best Remedy for the Existing De-
preston Fairly Considered
By a Practical Farmer.


Wool Growers Association, has issued
the following address to the farmers
and wool growers of the United States,
in which he discusses the low price of
farm products, explaining the reasons
therefor, and points to the remedy:
To the Farmers and Wool Growers of Ohio and
of the United States:
There has been no time in thirty
years past when the farmers have suffer
ed so much from low prices of farm
products as now.
The cause of this is plain. The crops
of 1889 were as follows: wheat 49O, 800
600 bushels, corn 2,112,S92, 900 bushels,
oats 751,5l5,000 bushels, besides rye,
barley, buckwheat, hay, etc. There has
been an over production of lOO,OOO,OOU
bushels of wheat, for which there is no
market exceptin Europe, where it is met
with wheat from the East Indies and
Russia. raised with labor costing only
| from from six to twenty cents per day,
and hence the European price is low.
There is substantially no foreign mark
ct for corn or oats.
The remedy for these conditions is
plain. The people of this country con-
sumo annually the equivalent of 600,-
100000 pounds of unwashed wool. If
we should produce, as we can, and un-
der sufficiently protective tariff would,
all this wool, we would have l00,000,000
sheed. But under the tariff reduction of
'S3 our flockS have been reduced to IL, =
599, ,079, producing about 240,00O,000 lbs,
and we import in the form of wool and
in wooden goods the equivalent of $780,
100000 pounds. When we import this
wool we patronize foreigners. we practi-
callv import the corn, oats, and. hay that
fed the 60,000,000 foreign sheep whose
wool we import and use and the wheat
and meat that fed the men who cared
for the f1ocks and fenced the land to
Craze them.
If Congress will give us sufficient
wool tariff we will soon cease to import
wool, we will make demand and give
us fair prices for all the surplus corn,
oats, and hay we now produce and make
a demand for still more. This would
enable us to take 100000 of the 38.-
100000 acres we are annually devoting
to sheep husbandry, and with this
change we would raise less wheat, cease
to export wheat, and our prices would
then be on an American basis, fair as
compared with prices of all other arti-
cles and no longer the prices of Europe.
In fact in few years there will be no
foreign market for American wheat. A
/ orif mill
perity to our farmers, and thus every
farmer is interested in sufficient wool
tariff whether he owns sheep or not.
The object of this address is to ask
the farmers of the country to appeal to
the President to put a speedy end to the
monstrous frauds now being perpetrated
in importing wool, and to appeal to our
member of Congress to aid in the same
work, and to speedily pass wool tariff
law that will give to wool manufactur-
ers and wool growers the exclusive priv
ilege of supplying all the woolen goods
and all the wool required for use in the
United States.
During the past year nearly 100000
pounds of an article called waste y
made in Europe to evade our tariff laws,
which is in fact good secured wool,
worth from so to 60 cents per pound,
equal in all to more than 24,000,000
pounds unwashed wool, more than the
whole clip of Ohio, was allowed to be
imported at duty of ten cents per
pound, equal to about 3 cents on un-
washed merino wool. The Secretary of
the Treasury few days since decided
this must hereafter pay thirty cents as
the law requires. Now if he will see the
law enforced and remove custom house
officers who will not enforce it, this evil
will cease.
But this is not the worst fraud. The
law now requires carpet woods to pay a
duty of q cents pound, washed or un-
washed, and y cents if secured. But
these woods are allowed to come in scour-
ed at q cents. A letter dated Feb. 20,
1890, from one of the best informed men
in our great importing cities, now before
us, says:
The abuses of this importation are now
most atrocious. No attempt is made to
enforce the law as to secured carpet
woods. Yet nine-tenths of the nearly
100000 pounds Imported last year.
was really secured.
Another letter of Feb. 25 says:
l have seen the floors of several wool
dealers x covered with freshly land
ed bales ofscoured Douskoi wool at 2115
cents duty to take the place of American
wool The market for the spring clip
will break with great crash.
And the the letter says these woods
very largely go "direct into clothing
mills, as one-third of the so-called car
pet wool does now x Two large
dealers told me that nearly all the cloth
ing mills they supply take nothing now
but imported carpet" We have sam
Piles of this secured wool, good wool for
the manufacture of clothing The duty
of p cents is less than the equivalent of
!. one cent per pound on foreign unwash-
ed WOOL
If those frauds and this low rate of
duty continue the imports will largely
increase. The imports of 90,000,000
pounds last year, mostly secured, were
! the equivalent of at least 150,000,000
unwashed, equal to one-fourth of all the
wool consumed in the United States
This is practically free wool, and unless
the duty is increased these imports will
be largely increased and destroy our
American wool industry.
Foreign wool can be bought now for
about one-half what it cost when the
wool tariff act of 1867 was passed, and
hence the duty now should be greater
than then, and the dividing line" in
carpet wool should now be less than in
= 1867. The farmers should now insist on
duty of at least II cents per pound on
, merino clothing wool, and treble on
secured.
, They should insist on the same rates
of duty on combing woods. No reason
exists for admitting this wool at less du-
ty. With proper duty we would soon
increase our long wool best mutton
sheep 2O,000,000, giving us all the comb
ing wool we need and abundance of the