The average annual importation of all manufactures of wool except carpets, for the years 1868 to 1883, under the tariff of 1867, was $34,129,676.21. The average annual value of the same importations under act of March 3, 1883, in the years 1884-'87 was $39,232,500.25. The value of these importations in 1887 was $42,752,588.12, and in 1888 was $46,352,063. The value of the import ations of all manufactures of wool for the month of July, 1888, was $1,265,992 greater than the importations for the corresponding month in 1887. If this rate of increase continues, the total imports for the present fiscal year will be about $63,000,000. To form an approximate estimate of the rapidity with which the quantity of imported woolen manufactures is increasing we should consider the great decline which has taken place in the price of woolen and worsted goods. The average value of the importations of manufactures of worsteds, etc., for the four years prior to 1883 was $1.33 per pound, while in 1887 the average had fallen to 79 cents per pound. The people of the United States consume nearly one-third of all the wool produced on the globe, the consumption per capita being very much greater than that of any other country. In 1860 the American producers supplied 68 per cent. of the amount of woolens required for domestic consumption; in 1880 they supplied 87 per cent.; while in 1884 the amount of woolen goods imported was probably less than 10 per cent. of the value of the total consumption. Since the reduction in rates made in 1883, however, with the increase in the value of our imports of woolens, domestic production has relatively declined. The following table shows the comparative value of domestic and imported manufactures of wool, value per capita, and proportion of the American market held by American and foreign manufacturers in each of the census years from 1820 to 1880: One of the principal arguments used by the advocates of free wool is that if the duty should be removed the woolen manufacturers of the United States would be able to compete successfully for the markets of the world, and that by retaining the duty upon wool we are deliber ately excluding them from profitable employment. There is, we be lieve, much popular misapprehension as to the extent of the markets of the world in woolen goods. The total amount of the net importations of woolen goods by all the countries of the world, excluding the United States, probably does not exceed $90,000,000 per annum. We ourselves imported last year, 1888, nearly $49,000,000 in foreign value of woolen goods, or more than $80,000,000 in duty paid value. It is thus demonstrated that we have within our own reach a market which is almost equal in importance to all the other available markets of the world, and it would seem to be the paramount duty of Congress to secure to American producers by wise legislation this important portion of the world's market. It can be easily shown that if we had free wool we could not compete on equal terms for the neutral markets of the world. We could not compete because the cost of production of all manufactures of wool aside from the cost of wool is much greater in the United States than in competing countries. We have equal advantages in machinery, capital, the enterprise of our people, but the much greater wages paid to operatives and the greater earnings in this country of all the people who contribute to the production of our woolen manufactures prevent successful competition in neutral markets, unless wages should be reduced to the foreign scale. It is only by the maintenance of the American system that the operatives in American woolen mills can hope to retain the immense advantages in respect of wages which they have over the workingmen of England, Germany, and France. The protection of the allied industries of wool and woolens has not, however, been beneficial alone to the persons employed in woolen mills. It has at the same time helped to increase the wages and rewards of farm labor; it has enabled us to raise and sell 300,000,000 pounds of woc where 60,000,000 pounds were raised, and to employ operatives in working up 400,000,000 pounds where but 86,000,000 pounds were manufactured. Coincident with this constant advance in wages and enlarged employment there has been a great reduction in the cost of woolen goods to American consumers. Free trade in wool and a bare revenue duty for woolens would compel farmers to raise other crops, of which the supply is already greater than the demand, and it would close factories in which many millions of capi*tal are invested, rob an army of operatives of employment, and force down the wages of all other labor. All this sacrifice and suffering, this arrest of harmonious progress, and this disorganization of labor, we are asked to face in the hope that with one sixth of the world's supply of wool cut off, we may thereby get cheaper wool and woolens. If this hope were rational, the loss would far outweigh the gain. It is better to maintain the wages of our workers and to develop our own resources than to abandon our fields, stop our mills, and look to Europe for the supply of our manufact ured products. A SECTIONAL BILL. The removal of the duties from cotton ties, burlaps to be used as cotton bagging, machinery for making cotton bagging, jute bags, etc., the retention of high duties on certain plantation products, such as sugar at 68 per cent. and rice at 100 per cent., the imposition of duties which would be protective on the coarser kinds of cotton and woolen fabrics manufactured in this section, all point to an attempt by the terms of the House bill to discriminate in favor of the planters of the cotton-growing States, an attempt made with the vain hope that it may be found possible to achieve the permanent prosperity of one section at the expense of another. The industries of this section are not disturbed. It is well known that a considerable number of interests in other sections are suffering from insufficient protection, and yet it is significant that the only article upon which the rate of duty is increased in the entire bill is uncleaned rice, which by a change in classification is advanced from 70 to 100 per cent. ad valorem. We submit herewith (Appendix E) a suggestive table taken from the census reports, which shows the relative proportion of the various manufactured products upon which rates are removed or largely reduced by the House bill that were produced in 1880 in the eleven cotton States and in the other States. This table discloses the fact that the section which furnishes the bill and two-thirds of its effective supporters supplies but 23 per cent. of the industries to be crippled or destroyed. A BILL TO FAVOR CANADA. The discrimination is not less marked in favor of the people of Canada and against the farmers and lumbermen living along our northern border from Maine to Oregon. The following table contains a comparison of the rates which are imposed by the Canadian tariff upon certain articles placed upon the free list by the House bill under consideration: Comparative statement of Canadian and United States tariffs on certain articles affected by the House bill (H. R. 9051). Under our existing tariff the Canadians send to our markets annually many millions of dollars in value of their products, which, after paying: Free 20 per cent. Free 15 per cent. Free 20 per cent. duties not greater than those levied by the Canadian tariff, are sold in competition with our domestic producers. The advantages which would accrue to the people of Canada by this removal of duties are manifest. The effect which the placing of lumber on the free list would have upon the Canadian interests is shown by the following extract from the report of Consul Hotchkiss to the Department of State, under date of February 2, 1888: I have been thus explicit in describing the systems of the two countries, for, to my mind, they are the key by which the situation and effect may be safely prejudged in case free lumber becomes a reality. There is no dispute that the American manufacturer controls the making of prices. In doing this, he is not influenced by the Canadian supply in any degree. If the duty of $2 is removed it will not affect the American price, because it has never been a factor and will still be unfelt. No lower price will prevail in the United States than heretofore, and no different net results will be experienced by the manufacturer. The Canadian, on the contrary, will lay his lumber down in the American market at $2 less per thousand, and will obtain for it the same as the American does, so that the net result to the Canadian manufacturer will be a clear gain of the $2 which the American Government has remitted. This additional net result to the Canadian manufacturer will, however, be of very brief duration. Having shown how the governments in Canada continue their control of the timber land and their disposition to tax them to the utmost, I am confident that not a May pay-day will pass before a public notice will issue in effect that a further increase in annual aud timber dues has been made an order in council, in sums sufficient to absorb the $2 per thousand into the provincial treasuries. That Canada will do this we have reason to believe, not only from the foregoing statement but from the fact that when in 1870 we placed logs on the free-list, which prior to that time bore a duty of $1 per thousand, Canada in 1872 responded by placing an export duty on logs of $2 which duty is retained to this day. HOME MARKET FOR FARM PRODUCTS. The comparative treatment which is indicated by a contrast between the duties on rice and sugar and the placing of beans, peas, meats, vegetables, and other northern agricultural products on the free list does not deter the supporters of this bill from making earnest appeals to farmers as a class for support. This appeal is based upon the theory that a protective tariff can not aid the farmer in securing better prices or a wider market for his products, but that it does impose a higher cost upon every protected manufactured article which he buys. It might be an advantage to an individual farmer if he were able to buy the protected manufactured products which he consumes at the prices they could be purchased for in England or Germany; but if all the farmers should purchase their supplies of these articles at the lower foreign price relative conditions would change at once. If these goods were all purchased abroad, the destruction of a large portion of the domestic demand for farm products created by the artisans and mechanics employed in manufacturing industries would follow, and a very large number of persons now engaged in other pursuits would be obliged to seek employment in agriculture. If, on the other hand, these manufactures should be purchased of domestic producers at the lower foreign price, this would involve, as we have shown, a reduction of the earnings of operatives and mechanics to the foreign level, and the consequent reduction of their ability to purchase farm products from the domestic supply. An addition of 5 cents per day to the wages of the workingmen of the country would furnish a market within our own territory equal in extent to the value of the surplus agricultural products now annually exported. If the earnings of all persons engaged in useful occupations in the United States should be reduced to the level of the earnings of the same classes in Great Britain the purchasing power of our people would be reduced more than $3,000,000,000 per annum, or by a sum equal to the value of all our agricultural products in 1880. No class of people in the United States have an equal interest with the farmer in the diversification of our industries and in the development of manufactures, for proximity to profitable markets gives increased value to labor and to land and its products. We append to this report Exhibit D, a statement showing the production, consumption, and exportation of cereals from 1840 to 1887, for the purpose of indicating the relative value to farmers of the foreign and home markets. From this table it will be seen that our total annual exports of all cereals would barely supply domestic consumption for three weeks. If the per capita consumption by our people had not been greater in 1887 than it was in 1860 our surplus for exportation would have been at least five hundred million of bushels greater than it was. This increase of consumption per capita is owing to the increased earnings of the masses of our people. If the acreage and production of cereals should remain stationary for a year and a half we should then have no surplus for exportation. The competition in wheat-growing which has been developed in India, South America, Australia, and in the British possessions in North America, is likely to make unprofitable the production of this cereal for exportation by our people, and to cause the wheat-grower of the Northwest to look to an enlargement of the certain and remunerative home market. This enlarged and profitable market can only be secured by increasing the number of people engaged in other than agricultural pursuits, and by furnishing to all increased employment without diminution of wages. To cripple our manufacturing interests and reduce the purchasing power of our working-men will result in augmenting the number of competitors in the field of agricultural production, and the increased supply could, in that event, only find a market in Europe by enforced competition with India at ruinous prices. Wheat can now be laid down in Liverpool from the Central provinces of India at as low a cost for transportation as from Chicago, and Indian wheat can be deliv |