Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1894-09-22
A Conclusive Reply.

The JOURNAL asks why, ''if free wool will
destroy the sheep raising industry, did not
free hides destroy the cattle raising industry ?"
For very many reasons. In the first place,
cattle are not raised for their hides. In the
second place, there was no great necessity for
a tariff on hides because there was no country
that could export them in quantities sufficient
to interfere with our domestic supply. Hides
needed protection to about the same extent
that anthracite coal did.-Cumberland Neps
The JOURNAL had gone about half
way toward showing the Ne,os that its
apologies for free trade in hides,
though ingenious, lack the vital merit
of consistency with facts heretofore
unmentioned, when the following
notes upon the subject were privately
proffered by Mr.. Moses Gibson, of
Homecoming.
Finding Mr.. Gibson's information
superior to our own, with his consent
we adopted his observations as better
reply than we can make, and they APP
pear below.
1t will be seen that Mr.. Gibson
measures fully up to the intensely
practical standard which the Ne,os has
erected for all who controvert its posi-
tions upon the tariff /:
The high protectionists admit hides free,
and thus give us the shoe trade of the world,
but tax wool. They encourage by high
protection tariff COW butter, but destroy the
butterine industry by internal taxation.
Butterine is the product of the OK and is the
poor mans butter. bit because Ohio and
Michigan are sheep States they pass these
burdensome laws to save their votes in these
States.
The farmer "does not raise cattle for the
hides and butter fats, but both enter largely
into the value of the industry. Neither does
the sheep-grower east of the Missouri river
grow sheep for their WOO. The Ohio man
can always sell his lambs in June at from 50
to $3.50 each, and that, too, the product of a
eve costing not over 81, cared for OH an old
fallow field for months in the year, and the
other four months kept in condition for
spring lambing on ship-stuff, wheat straw
and corn stalks. A friend of mine in the
valley of Virginia told me in 1887 that the
sheep product of his farm was virtually
velvet" as he had no other use for his fall
low land, and that he could not sell his
straw and fodder at any price. I'm fact"
he said-''1 made upon that flock which cost
me $500 year ago just 100 per cent?" and
added-"ain't that a snap?"
There is not State this side of the Mis-
souri, which cannot dispose of its lambs at
price which will make the sheep industry as
profitable as the cattle. We have to keep the
COWS from year to year for the calves, and if
we do not sell the calf when it is four weeks
old, the COW has to raise it and virtually pro-
duces nothing but the calf. Then why pro-
tect the product of the eve and not that of
the COW?
Mr.. McCardell said that sit did not make
any difference whether we had any duty on
hides or not; we had no competitors in
cattle'raisng and did not import any hides of
consequence" How about the millions of
head Of cattle roaming oyer the plains Of
South America and how about the So, $3.50 600
of hides imported into this country in 1891,
and how about the millions of dollars worth
OF fresh meat shipped from that country
which is virtually driving our cattle from the
European markets?
Wool had a protection under the tariff of
1888 offrom 10 to II cents pound, and yet last
year we were obliged to import the enormous
amount Of ST., 697, 067 so worth, and of goods
manufactured from wool-S35, 792, 9O5. 81
and this i'll 1892, the second year of Nc
Kinleyism.
Does protection protect?