FREE WOOL.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 7, 9 July 1894, Page 2

FREE WOOL.

TO THE EDITOR Off THE STAR. Sib,— Every citizen of these colonies may well bail with the utmost satisfaction the passing of the new American Tariff Bill. Under the condition of things to which we are accustomed, it would be quite safe to jubilate nowr over the matter ; In the United States, however, it doesn't do to be certain of anything. It is not safe to predict there that every Act fully passed by the Legislature will become law, not even though it has received the President's signature. Vested interests in that country are the supreme powers in "the land; everything can be bought at a price from "justice " downward. It is a signißcant fact that this very Bill went up from; the popular Chamber with a duty on raw material, though the people at the polls had returned a large, majority to the House of Representatives pledged to the free admission of all raw material. It is to be hoped, however, that the: " trusts," " rings," and other abominations peculiar to the "freest land on earth," may prove powerless to defeat the practical application . of the measure. One thing we may rest assured of, if the United States continue to admit our wool free, the almost total extinction of the sheep industry there is a certainty. Notwithstanding the complete tariff barrier that has so loug sheltered the American wool grower against foreign competition, bis trade has led a fitful life ; at no time, and in no section of the country, has the industry flourished as it does with us. This is due to a variety of causes that need not be here enumerated. Suffice it that American wool production was only profitably maintained by the aid of a thoroughly prohibitive tariff. Without the tariff it must inevitably succumb to outside competition. It is for that reason I fear that our joy may be short lived. '■ Jonathan will soon begin to emphatically " guess " that it is more to his profit to keep his dollars at home, instead of sending them to these far off isles of the sea for an article that he is persuaded he can produce to perfection; for, no matter what others may think, your genuine American will never be made to believe that his country cannot produce everything under the sun, «s no other can. Let us hope though, that once having got a foothold in the American wool market we will never wholly lose it again. I am, etc, . \ JUHBUCK; FeUding, July 7th, 1894.