Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1888 — THE WOOL DUTY. [ARTICLE]

THE WOOL DUTY.

Report on the Mils Tariff: Why, then, should we keep out by high duties the foreign wools so necessary to the clothing of txe people? The wool growers’ association asks us to put on i duty high enough to prevent the importation of all wool. The wool manufacturers’ association ask us to put on a duty high enough to keep out all manufactures of wool. If congress grants this joint request, what are the people to do for woolen clothing? Are the people to be compelled by congress to wear cotton goods in the winter or go without to give bounties to wool growers and wool manufacturers? During the last fiscal year there were 114,404,173 pounds of wool imported, and of that am0unt81,505,447 were cheap carpet wool, the greater part of which paid 2| cents per pound duty. The high duty of 10 cents ' per pound on the finer wools that go j into clothing was *>o great a barrier j against the importation of the better wools that cnly 33,099,696 pounds were imported. But our people required clothi. pud if congress put a duty so high on wool as to keep it out, still, high as was the duty on woolen goods, $44,235,243 worth were imported and consumed in this country, upon which duties were paid amounting to $29,729,717. If the charges constantly being made are true —that great quantities of these goods are coming in undervalued, under weighed and unmeasured — then the aggregate amount is much larger.