DUTY ON WOOL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2011, 22 February 1890, Page 3

DUTY ON WOOL.

The current number of the American Wool Reporter contains two petitions which have been widely circulated among manufacturers and dealers in woollen goods in all parts of the country. One petition favors ad valorem duties on wool, and has .196 signatures. iOany manufacturers and dealers who signed this petition would prefer the repeal of all duties on wool, but they are afraid that the wool-growers would combine to ask for free manufacture of wool, which would set them back worse than ever.

The second petition has 524 signatures, and demands “ free wool for the benefit of our domestic wool-growers and wool manufacturers alike.” The argument used in support of this demand is to the effect that the great importation of foreign wool ia the form of goods and yarns displaces American wool, and cuts off a demand for fleeces in the American mills, Under the tariff as at present framed the American wool-grower complains not so much against the foreign raw wools as against the wools in finished goods, which are imported into his country and made to hold a market which should be supplied from American mills. The difficulty is that America cannot obtain the foreign mixing wools necessary for the production of fine goods without paying heavy duty on it, and is thus put at a disadvantage in competing against its British rivals, who get all sorts of wool they use free tariff taxes. As the wool growers of the United States cannot produce all the various kinds of woollen goods, it must get foreign mixing fleeces free of duty, or else have its manufactures restricted and its home demand for wool impaired. And the importers bring in woollen goods made wholly of foreign wool equal to one half the annual home clip. Thus, while the sheep farmer imagines himself protected against the raw wools of other countries, the tariff really makes him face a severe competition from the finished woollen goods brought into the country. If the farmers could be made to see this they would discover that the protective principle cannot be made to apply to wool, and that the existing duties cannot benefit anybody and are a real hardship upon every wool consumer and every family in the Union. The truth is that the people are demanding a revision of the tariff. The Republican party promised the people that they would reduce the tariff sufficiently to exhaust the surplus revenue. The work of this Committee is seemingly in the direction of keeping that promise, but is really to gain time. The majority is too small to accomplish any radical reform on any line. Neither party will allow the other to have any honor that can possibly be prevented"— Dunedin Star correspondent.