The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-10-24
A REVIEW OF THE NEW TARIFF.
Explanations and Prophesies in
Harper's Weekly.
THE SURRENDER TO SUGAR.
1t is Called a Ghost That VIII Not
Down, and the Writer Believes the
Entire Schedule VIII Be Revised
at the Congressional Session or 1896.

One of the most exhaustive arti-
cles on the American tariff-that
which bears the name of the Evil
son law has appeared in Har-
per's Weekly Of a recent date. It
has bearings upon the trade with
Hawaii. and is as follows:
After the weary struggle of the long
session OF Congress, it is relief to
turn from proposals and possibilities
to accomplished facts. The Tariff Act
of 1894 stands on the statute-book. It
is well to put aside for q while the
events of the immediate past, the
party pickering, the personal animosi-
ties, the ignoble contest between the
two Houses, in order to consider the
place of the new Act in the tariff
legislation of the past generation, and
weigh the significance OF the final
changes in rates, not only of those SO
much disputed, but of those accepted
with little noisy debate. Now that
the struggle is over, we may pause
and see where we stand, and how we
have come to be there.
First and foremost stands a change
which has been the subject of COM
paratively little attention in the last
few months, yet is the most import
ant, politically and economically, of
all tie thousands of changes in rates.
This is the free admission of wool.
Here we have radical departure from
the policy pursued for the thirty years
since the war. 1t is even a departure
from the policy followed before the
war in the Democratic tariff of 1916;
fn in 10 90 xxyoC
to a considerable duty. Now it comes
in free; even incidental protection
disappears. And this change was
virtually settled from the start. What
ever the struggles in the committees,
or in the House or Senate, or between
the two Houses, there was never any
question that wool was to be on the
free list. With the free admission of
wool, a change, almost as radical, was
inevitable as to the duties on woolen
goods. The entire wool and woolen
schedule in the tariff was thus revolu-
tioniZed.
AS To WOOL.
Politically this change is important,
because wool was the one prominent
article as to which it could be seriously
maintained that the farmer got a share
of the protective bounty. There were,
indeed, duties on wheat and corn and
meat, but so long as these commodities
are never imported, and depend for
their market largely on the exports, it
cannot be pretended that their prices
are effected by duty, or that their pro-
ducers get within the magic circle of
those whose prosperity is the creature
of legislation. But wool is imported,
and so is subject to foreign cOmpeti-
tion in the home market. The farmers
10
like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michi-
gan, have had it dim. Il in their ears
that free wool meant collapse of the
prices of wool and slaughter to their
fiocks. 1t required courage to face this
cry, especially in doubtful States like
Ohio, where q few thousand votes
might turn the scale. Now the wool
growers, whether farmers in the East
or ranchmen in the West, have been
told, once for all, that they must do
without legislative all.
Economically the change to free
wool is important in itself, and as the
emphatic recognition of sound prin-
ciple. On this hotly debated article
our tariff now stands squarely on the
ground that trade between nations is
a division of labor in which both sides
gain; that there are some things
which iL is better for us to buy than
to make; and that if we buy, we sell,
and need not fear ruin from reckless
over purchase. 1t is surprising that
this truth should not nave been sooner
followed in regard to a commodity
like wool. 1t is the raw material of a
manufacture which is inevitably and
admittedly hampered by the duty.
At the same time it is a material of
which the quality is largely deter
mined by soil, climate, and other
physical causes, and which thus gives
little scope for that progress of i'm
prOvement and invention sometimes
plausibly claimed to be the result of
protection to manufactures.
The same sheep will yield differ
ent fleece in England and in Oregon,
in Texas and in New South Wales.
The varieties of fibre are endless; Ma
ture has her way in giving the sheep a
different covering as its food and ex-
posure vary. For certain qualities of
wool the dry and sunny plains of
Australia are as clearly the natural
source of supply as the tier of States
that border on the Gulf OF Mexico are
the sources of supply for the worlds
best cotton. Hence for years no civil
lied country, except our own, has i'm
posed a duty on wool. And in this
country, while we have maintained q
duty, wool has constantly been i'm
ported over the barrier; fine wool and
cheap wool have come in, notwith-