The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-09-02
WHArrREE WOOL MEANS.

Some Points for Bennington Wooden
Mill Operatives TO COnsIder.-A Vote
for Fuller and Stranahan next Tues.
day means that you will NOT assisI the
Democracy 10 take your bread and
butter out OF your mOuths.-SOme-
thinE also for Bennington County
Farmers 10 consider.
William G.. Steel, the well known
wooden manufacturer of Philadelphia has
addressed the following letter to the
minority of the Ways and Means Com
mittee:
'PriOr to the passage of the act known
as the tariff of 1888 my firm was largely
engaged in handling American made
wooden goods. After the tariff of 1888,
which reduced the duties ON this class of
goods, we never made another contract
with an American mill, and after six
months from that time never bought
another piece of American made
goods.
"Without the Mckinley law this
branch of trade could not have been re-
suscitated without great reduction in
the wages of the workers in it. Should the
Springer Free Wool bill become a law,
am confident that in six months scarcely
a WOODEN mill in the country would be
turning a wheel. The Protection now
afforded is scarcely adequate to cover the
difference between cost of making here
and abroad, yet this bill reduces the
Protection fully 20 per cent on the dd-
udlerem rate alone and much more on
the specific. With the Protection it pro-
poses and free wool there is no wooden
or worsted fabrics that could not be i'm
ported at good profit to the foreign
manufacturer and dealer cheaper than it
costs to produce by the most skilled and
competent manufacturer in the United
States, giving both parties the raw
material at precisely the same cost.
prior to the Act of 'S3 the protective
duties on manufactures of wool were
virtually what they are now, 80 per cent.
Yet the Springer Free Wool bill proposes
to reduce this Protection from 80 to "a
cents. There is no manufacturer in the
United States who can make these goods
at an outlay of 30 cents for the mere ex-
pense of making, much less "A cents.
For example the foreign weaver gets II
cents per yard for his portion of the
work, while upon the scale of wages paid
to the weaver here the lowest pay he
would get would be Al cents. At this
price the American weaver makes
only a fairly good living. How the
foreign weavers live upon the sea ,ty pay
may be readily conjectured. The pay
here is fully double, frequently three and
in numerous cases four times what it is
abroad.
-Four hundred million of dollars
would be a low estimate Of the value of
all the wool, wooden goods and clothing
held in the United States by producers,
manufacturers and dealers. The effect
of the Cleveland and Springer free wool
policy would be to take off one-third of
the value vi ali Lnis property, which
means wiping out, by the enactment of
a law, of from $3.50, 900, 100 to $3.50, ZOO, 900
of the assets Of, uniteily, one of the
largest and most general trade interests
in the country. 1t can be easily seen
why the wooden mills would stop, and
also that the disastrous effects of such
crisis could not be confiled to that single
interest. They would Immediately ex-
tend to banks and financial institutions,
and through them to every line Of in
dustry and investment, resulting in gen.
eral commercial and monetary disturb
ance, and finally business panic The
wool growers have been persistently
dinned with the assertion of the Free
Traders that protective tariff is the cause /
of the decline in wool. If that is the
fact l would liked it explained how in
the United States one-quai ter blood and
common woods opened this year from par
to one cent per pound higher than they
did last year, while in Free Trade Eng
land the same class of woods grown there
opened and are to-day two cents per
pound lower than they we're at the same
period last year. The fact is that the
price of wool declines because of the
continued increase of production over
consumption outside of the United States
and prices here respond as far as the
tariff will permit. Take off the twelve
cents per pound duty and washed woods
of this description that to-day sell for
thirty-four cents would not bring over
twenty-five cents. Free wool means al
so free hemp, free tobacco and every
other farm product, as consistency and
equity are claimed to be the ruling
principles of the Free Trade partisans.