Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1884 — TO MUCH PROTECTION. [ARTICLE]

TO MUCH PROTECTION.

Combined With Over-Production Has Ruined the Business ot..£ Woolen Manufacturers. [Pkil’a Special lo the Commercial Guz.j The depression in the wool trade here is something remarkable, business is practically at a st: nd*.still,. The mills ure running on halt' lime, or about to close,.or are closed. William Allen, at Amber and Huntingdon streets, mami» factum: of carpet ynias, who employs three hundred hands, has closed his mills. James Lees & Sons, who e ploy say one thousand hands, have laid off six hundred of them, and are tuning only three days in the week. The prospects are that they will shut down altogether. Among the wool-bro :;rs on Front Street it was reported that Thomas Ken worth & Bro.. whose mills at Shura Lane. Manayuak, employ three hundred men, were on the eve of closing down, but the rumor wa denied at the office ot the firm. While the situation was very bad. It. was said their had been no conclusion reached to slim down. If affairs continued in the same w . a /’. h°wev3r. it was «, mere qu stion of time. The sain# rumors prevailed with regard to Hu-eluusou & O. den, of Manayunk, but on investigation they were found to be running on half time. ‘There are six mills in Manavunk closed/ said Councilman Wild, of the twenty-first ward, and as matters are just new, there will be more before winter. Business is terribly dull. This is due, of c mrse, to over-production, wlii Ji in my opinion, is the result of two much protection. It the mills are shut down and the employes are all thrown on the streets at this time it will make hundreds of Oleveland votes. I hear that McCallum, Crease & Sloan and Bchofield, Mason & Co. are running on hilf time, but there is n® talk as vet of their Closing.

Tbe employes of the miil* th*t a e running on half time are in a * ate of uu-ii-si, anticipating the closing of the esÜbhabment, by which tin y will be tuned Ux se to search t- r other emu! ynenr. The near approach of winter and the dullness of busines* are no; eneouraging ci-tus to there men. who are dipe * dent on the l ib-r <*t their hands lor bread for their families At the iactory of J im s Le ■» & Son j , worsted yarn nianiifuctor< ra, in Norris* town, only lour buudrel bands have been working < n half time, wheieas in the b isy s-’i.sou a thousand have been employed. Manager Ackerov >ai- ! : ‘We attribute the dullness of the trade to over-production: ‘The demand lor tii er grades of worsted vars has decreased to a great exteut, and those manufacturers are now making the cheaper gridit; They have, there/or, encroached upon our trade, and fl.Kxlcd th*- market. ‘Another reason fer our stoppage is that RAW MATERIAL COSTS US THIRTYSIX CENTS PER POUND, AND AFTER WASHING, COMBIN'D, AND HANDLING IT WE CAN GET BUT THIRTY-EIGHT. This does not pay, and the firm prefer to keep their money rather than run the mill and .sink it. We produce iu busy times about 8,(00 pounds of yarn per day, but the strikes among the various industries upon which we depend for sales have so reduced the demands that we have calls for but one quarter of tin t amount. We have -shout one hundred and seventy looms in the factory, about ninety of which are niuning, aud that is more than we actually require.