The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1892-10-21
one-half Million Dollar: to be Swept
Away.


The sheep industry in Shiawassee county
is variously estimated, but no estimate
makes this branch of industry worth less
than one-half million of dollars. The wool
| clip ranks next to the grain crop as an an
nual income and in purchasing power.
The leading sheep raisers of Shiawassee
county, which includes such flockmasters as
Hubbard, Barnes, Burnett, Parmenter and
others, ask the consideration of their case
Wien it comes to the destruction of their
f1ocks and all others in this county, and ask
for their fellow citizens to defeat Congress
man Youmans who voted for free wool, and
Grover Cleveland, who has singled out this
industry for an attack.
Free wool means for more than a million
American wool growers direct and un-
checked competition of the most degrading
sort, not with free men of any race who own
their lands and support their own govern
ment, but with convicts or coolies in Aus
~tralasia, with the savages OF South America
and the blacks of South Africa. Where
land costs nothing, where the climate re-
duces the expense of sheep raising to the
minimum, and where the laborer has neither
home nor citizenship, and lives Oil nothing,
wool can be grown at a cost with which
American farmers cannot compete and
shoald never he obliged to compete. Already
Australian production has been so vastly in
creased, and the price of wool in other
countries so greatly depressed, that 49,
67O,672 POUNDS were imported during the
past fiscal year, the greater part of which
was valued abroad at less than 10 cents per
pound. Without any duty on cheap foreign
wool, the industry in this country would
have to be almost wholly abandoned, even
in the distant unsettled and rapidly narrow
ing regions where lands Can be occupied for
nothing. The growers of wool number
more than a million, and own As, 600, 900
sheep, the value of which is SIG, 900, 600.
Rarely, IL ever, has it been proposed to
abandon and destroy an industry of such
magnitude, and to render worthless such
large investments by citizens and. voters.
Wool has never yet been free of duty
under any party or tariff since the first duties
thereon were imposed, and until Mr.. Cleve-
lands desperate bid for free trade support,
it was scarcely believed that any party
would venture to propose a change so un-
just and injurious to the entire body of
farmers. Only the year before his election
the democratic party in Ohio, realizing that
votes by some democratic members for a
mere reduction of wool duties would render
Its defeat probable, sought to avoid that de-
feat by pledging restoration of the wool
duties to those imposed in 1866, which are
substantially the duties imposed by the new
tariff. Failing to catch votes by a pledge
so %palpably insineere, the party next threw
the wool growing farmers aside as hopeless
and sought to entice manufacturers by the
promise of free raw material with protective
duties on manufactured products. When
President Cleveland had been defeated on
that device also the party concluded, IL APP
pears, that neither wool growers nor wool
manufacturers could be enticed into destroy
ing their own interests by their votes and
thus 1t has cast Oft the mask, declares all
protective duties robbery and %uncOnstitu-
tional, and votes for free wool and for duties
ON woslen goods much too low for protec-
ton of the industry.