Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1891 — WHY WOOLS ARE LOWER [ARTICLE]

WHY WOOLS ARE LOWER

WHAT THE SENATORS SAY ON THE SUBJECT. An Grades of Wool Are Lower than a Year Ago— Manufacturer* of Cigars Form a Trust to Take Full Advantage of the McKinley BlU—Failures Since Jan. 1. Why They Have Fallen. High tariffs lower wool prices; low tariffs raise wool prices. So say Senator* Sherman and Allison, Thomas Dolan, the high-tariff woolen manufacturer, and the organ of the Manufacturers’ Club. That high duties on the foreign fine wools needed by our manufacturers to mix with the wools of domestic production lower the prices of our own wools is fully shown by the course of wool prices since the enactment of the McKinley tariff. The truth of this assertion is admitted by such leading men as Senators Allison of lowa and Sherman of Ohio. On March 24, 1870, Senator Allison said, in debating the wool tariff: “I allude to the wool tariff, a law the effect of which has been materially to injure the sheep husbandry of this country. As the law now is, the tariff upon line wools of, a character not produced in this country is 100 per cent, on their cost. Before the tariff of 1867, our manufacturers of fine goods mixed foreign wools with our domestic product, and were thus able to compete successfully with the foreign manufacturers of similar wools. But, being prohibited from importing this class of wcols, these fine goods cannot now bo produced in this country as cheaply as they can be Imported. if they could afford to manufacture these tine goods, they would make a market which we do not now have for our fine wools to be mixed with other fine wools of a different character from abroad. The want of a market, as I understand it, is the reason why our fine wools command so low a price. ” The following from Senator Sherman’s speech in the Senate, Leb. 7, Itßl, on the wool schedule of the tariff of 1883, will show that he agrees with Senator Allison as to the effect of high duties on wool. Senator Sherman said: “in 1867 the price of wool was-51 cents; in 1870, • 46 cents; in 1880, which was an abnormal year, 48 cents; this was the result of the policy of protecting the woolgrower, as it is in all industries, to gradually reduce the price. Under the operation of the existing law (the tariff of 1867) the price of wool has gradually gone down. ” Thomas Dolan, who was associated with Lawrence and Delano, of Ohio, in the preparation of tin wool schedule of the McKinley tariff, wrote a letter to the New York World a short time ago, In which he said: “It is an interesting fact, deserving much emphasis of statement, that the prices of w.ool are lower now than they were one year ago. This result was distinctly promised by the Protectionists during the discussion which accompanied the framing of the tariff bill." In nearly every issue last year the high-tariff Manufacturer advocated increased duties on wool, declaring that the result of such action would lower wool prices. Thus on Jan. 1, 1890, it said: “When duties have gone up, prices have gone down; when duties have declined, prices have advanced. The domestic manufacturer has always had an abundance of superior fiber at low prices under tariffs which imposed light duties upon wool, and he is to day paying more for wool than he would have paid if the defective tariff law of 1883, administered by a free trade administration, had not practically cut down the wool duties.” On Oct. 16, 1890, after the McKinley tariff had gone into efifect, it said: “The prices of wool have always declined when the duties have been advanced, and no doubt exists in the mind of any wellinformed man but they will again decline now that the new tariff law has put the duties up. ” No wonder that McKinley avoids the wool question in his speeches in justification of his tariff bill when his associates in Congress and the journals, while supporting his tariff, declare that high tariffs lower wool prices and low tariffs raise them.