Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-07-15
WOOL AND sHoDDY.

Docs the Tariff Increase the Use of Shoddye
Views of Prominent Manufacturer.
Some controversy has recently arisen
between The American Wool Reporter
whether the wool tariff tends to increase
the use of shoddy. This controversy arose
over the analysis which The Economist
had made of the wooden goods manufac-
tured by the advocates of high wool du-
ties on the one hand and by the friends of
free wool on the other.
The result of The Economists compari-
son showed that the goods made by GER
tain members of the high tariff Manu-
facturers' club, of Philadelphia, is COM
posed of 3St pei cent. of wool or worsted,
5Si per cent. of cotton and 8 per cent. of
shoddy; and that the goods made by
members of the new free wool organiza-
ton known as the Wool Consumers as
ISOLATION, with headquarters at Boston,
is composed of 81 per cent. of wool and
worsted and per cent. OF cotton.
The Wool Reporter attempts to break
the force of exact figures like these by
pointing out that shoddy is largely used
in England, a fact which nobody dis
putes. The only question involved is
whether the wool tariff, by increasing
the cost of imported WOOL encourages
the use of shodoy.
In answer to this simple question Mr..
Arthur T. Lyman, of the Lowell Manu-
featuring company, Boston, who is one
of the leading carpet manufacturers of
New England, and is himself a member
of the Wool Consumers association,
writes letter to the Boston Journal of
Commerce which should be decisive in
the question at issue.
1t may not be possible" says Mr..
Lyman, for The Economist to prove
that the advocates of free wool use less
shoddy in all cases than their high tariff
rivals, because any manufacturer must
make goods to sell, and if the buyer will
not take all wool goods at a price higher
than shoddy limitations, the all wool
goods will not sell. But it is perfectly
clear that heavy duties on wool directly
and forcibly encourage the increased use
of shoddy and hair and waste and cotton
in so called wooden goods 1t is notorious
that there has been an immense increase
in the use of such materials in this
country. If there We're no duty on
wool it is certain that the temptation to
put cattle hair and cotton into carpets
would be much less. and if all woods
We're free there would be less of cheap
and waste material put into all kinds of
wooden goods.
Cheap goods and shoddy goods and
poor goods III every way would still be
made to meet certain demands, but all
wool goods woull be relatively cheaper
The cheap foreign goods sent to this
country are made to sell on their ap-
pearances, and II spite of the monstrous
duties on imported goods, and of course
the cheap and snowy goods made for the
English market Oy English or German
manufacturers are made to underseQ the
better English goods. The consumers
get the worst of it all the time, and the
manufactured who wishes to use wool is
beset with many troubles. Less politics
and more courage will give the man
ufacturers free wool. They all need it
and they all want it. They want duty
on their goods, too, but their monstrous
bargain with the wool growers, to the
injury of all consumers, has not made
safer the duty on goods-in fact it has
brought to life free trade interest"