The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1892-10-08
rnE PRRR wnnL Question.

Yania is $500 per year, or S6.S3 per week,
or about sl.l5 per day,
THE FREE WOOL QUESTION.
Let us look at this question of free wool
as it directly affects ourselves, for that is
the true standard by which to Judge it,
We have population of 1,250,000 in
Philadelphia, and about &c sheep. We
consume oyer $40 per head Of woollens, on
which we are taxed by the grace of Me
Kinley's tariff from so to over 100 per
cent. laughterl, or probably IN average
Of 80 per cent, If tariff taxes protect labor
they must increase the cost of the product
in exact proportion, and the cold figures
would prove that we pay about S2,000,000
taxes for S500,000 of woollens to protect
~ sheep, Shouts of laughter Is it
wonderful that luxury so costly to the
people as protection to Philadelphia sheep
gave us the sweet song Of Mary and her
little lamb? Laughter. But look at
our great State, We have a population of
5,250,000 and we consume not less than
gl05,O00, 900 of woollen goods, on which
the Mckinley tariff increased taxes up from
80 to 80 per cent. Making all allowance
in favor of the variation of tariff taxes, it
is safe to say that the lowest amount of
taxes paid by the people of Pennsylvania
on the woollens they consume is $50, 000,-
900. We have ,039, 512 sheep in the
State, and the tax the people pay for pro-
tecting the so-called sheep industry is about
$50 per head for every sheep and lamb in
the Commonwealth laughter, or about
from ten to twenty times the market value
Of each sheep every year,
And how has he fostered the sheep
industry? In 1868 Ohio had 6,730,l20
sheep; in 1891, one year after he had pass
Cd his high wool tariff law, Ohio had H.
061 1913. Laughter. He has thus pro-
tected the sheep industry of his State down
more than Ope-third and protected the
price of wool down over 10 per cent? but
that is just the sort Of protection the Me-
Kinleys always give to the farmer. Laugh
ter. And what is true of Ohio is true of
Pennsylvania. Here the price of wool has
fallen from three to four cents per pound,
and We now have only l,039 ,502 sheep in
the State, instead of S,42a,00 in 1868.
Is it not about time to give the farmer
rest from the blatant hypocrisy of protect
ing him by high tariff taxes? Applause.
I THE TRIPLET INFANT INDUSTRIES.
I He was determined to protect Ohio
wool if taxation coRld do it, and in order
to aid it, he cunningly put IN tax of II
cents per pound on goats hair that costs
two cents per pound in the open market.
1t is not wool, but it serves the purpose of
wool in cheap carpets and other articles of
common use where grandeur is sacrificed
to service and he took his revenge on the
billy goats of Bombay and Russia by piling
tax of five hundred per cent. on their
hair to prevent it from coming into COM
petition with wool that We meyer grow.
Laughter.
The second of the triplet circle of infant
industries to which the Mckinley tariff
has given birth is the linen industry. We
had Eve little linen mills in the whole
country, not one Of which ever turned out
linen handkerchief either before or since
the Mckinley tariff, and we have Just the
same number to-day, so far as | have been
able to learn. They turn out only coarse
linen crashes, but they have been dignifed
into an infant industry and the tariff tax
bottle given them, although not on the
magnificent five hundred per cent scale of
the billy goat industry Flax was taxed
out of sight to make it grow here, and its
growth is no more visible than the growth
!
of the billies, The tariff taxes collected
to enable this infant industry to be well
nursed and bottled, amount to s. 200 900,
giving an advance of 30 per cent on the
markets at the time the tariff was passed,
and that difference paid more than the
entire cost of labor employed in all our
linen mills. In other words, the entire
labor cost of our linen mills was S124,000
and the tariff taxes on linens imported
were s156, 100 That infant industry
ought to thrive, but it still languishes and
only general break in linens abroad pre-
vented largely increased prices.
The tin plate industry completes the
infant triplets brought forth to be reared
On the high tariff tax bottle. Before the
passage Of the Mckinley tariff we did not
attempt to make any tin plate. Since the
passage of the new law we pretend to make
it and don't. Laughter. This infant
industry is a prodigy Of fraud upon labor
and Of robbery of the people. 1t was
specially framed for spectators and job