Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1888 — REPUBLICAN POSITION. [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN POSITION.

Point® from M *jor McKinley’® Boport on the Mills Bill. The Mills tariff bihl was presented to the House on the 2d. McKinley sub* mitted the minority report. The report pays attention to each one cf the tariff schedules in the Mills bill, attacks vigorously the free list, vehemently denounces free wool and free tin plate. Two pages are devoted to the wool question. It.predicts ru’n and disaster to the f irmers of the country interested in sheep raising. McKinley says that the first effort in the dine-ion of free trade is aimed at the unorganized f umersef the country, who, fur removed from the cinters cf trade, busy on their firms and plantations, unused to meeting ommittees cf Congress and unadvised that their interests were to ba dealt an unfriendly blow, are to ba the first victims cf the British policy through the agexc/ cf the American Congress. Theirs is a large interestlaw in the ciuntry are larger. It is bund in every 8 sate in the Union and indeed in most ciuntiei; it is in the hands cf the many, not the cancantrated taw. The flcci-masters and their workmen numb ar at least 2,000,000 persons; the numbar of fleets will reach 1,100,000; the capital invested has b?en estimated by competent authority at more than $500,000,000, and the annual produce cf 1888 was valued at $128,000,000, Under the duty of 1867, the industry has grown to large proportions. In 1860 the sheep in the United States numbered a little over 23,000,000. In 1883 the number increased 50,600,000. In 1860 the clip was 60,200,000 pounds; in 1883 it reached 320,000,000 pounds. The duty of 1867, which gave to woo'-growere its greatest encouragement, and induced the farmers to incraase their flocks an 1 expend their means for the best varieties of sheep and lor their eare and improvement, and which finally made the American wools the best in the world, adapted to all the uses of manufacturers, even the h’ghest grades of woolen and worsted eiotues, has a Ideed nothing to the cost of wool to the ncanu'aemrera or consumer; on the contrary, that cost has been greatly cheapened. Tn 1867 the pries was 51c nts; in 1870 it was 46 cents; in 1875, 43 ents. There has been a steady rjduc ion, with occasional fluctuatione,Bince these: of 1867$ until now it is so low as to be temporarily unprofitab’e. Free wool will be of no permanent benefit to the manufacturers, or consumers, but a positive loss to both, and great ’ors to the fleck-masters-and there depending upon th«*m for employment. The decay of sheep husbandry in the United States would be a national calamity; it would place our xnanufac urerr at the mercy of foreign producers. This is an industry which cannot be built up in a dayj it has requ red years of car a and coat to reach its present development, and sound policy demands its continuance and encouragement.