The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1892-03-11
The Wool Tariff.

In 1889 and 1890, the representatives of
the American Sheep Breeders Association
conferred with the Committee on Ways and
Means in the House of Representatives and
the result was the wooden tariff schedule as
it now stands in the Mckinley tariff act.
Ever since that time the free trade element
has been demanding the repeal of the duties
Merino wool in Michigan who wants the
tariff act removed. However, the remnant
of the old confederate constitution party
wherein that defunct document forever pro-
hibited duties on imports is made tenet of
modern belief and still the faithful keep up
the cry of free wool.
Hostility to American wool was originally
because it was a rival of cotton in the cloth
market, and northern doughfaces were
found to ally themselves with the cotton
raisers for free wool and the fugitive slave
law. The republican party forever dis
missed from consideration the latter, and
then all the forces of those elements were
concentrated upon free wool. In the cotton
states no higher motive exists today for
free wool than to crowd the southern
grown cloth fibre to the exclusion of the
northern grown product, and in addition,
the old lingering desire to i'm someway be
revenged upon the North in a commercial
manner. What then can be the feeling of
the Michigan woOl-grOwer regarding the
attempt of the northern allies of the
cotton states to advocate and defend the
Springer free wool bill. The northern free
wool advocate adds insult to injury in their
attempts at argument, for the wool-grower
is addressed as though he did not know
what were his best interests. Yet the north
ern tail of the southern dog belongs to the
same breed of ours that would destroy the
flock of the northern wool-grower were he
not wise.
A democratic editor recently addressed
the effect of the Mckinley bill. The an
swer received expressed entire satisfaction
with the workings of the law that made it
possible for the writer to obtain from five to
wool grower outside of the u. S. Where
upon the shepherd of the great unwashed,
who leads flock of free traders, says i'm sub
stance to the man of experience, "My dear
sir, while you doubtless mean well, it is very
plain that you are dwelling idiot when
you come to this question of wool. Don't
you see that If under the Mckinley tariff
you get 10 cents per pound more than for
eign wool grower, you would, were the Nc
Kinley tariff abolished get II cents per
pound more" OF course you ought to see
that If the tariff on wool was abolished you
would be Oh perfect equality of position
with the foreign wool-grower in the mark
cts, and when you both brought the same
quality of wool to the same market you
would get IA cents pound more for your
wool than your competitor. Then you
would buy the foreign wool and make ID
cents on every pound of that.
The case might be carried further until
the American farmer could buy up all the
foreign wool and still make his Ia cents on
every pound. Now, candidly, the advice of
the free trade editor to an experienced wool
grower is about the most cOnsummate piece
of impudence possible when it is considered
that the adviser does not know the difference
between hydraulic ram and an American
Merino one.