AMERICA AS A WOOL MARKET.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1122, 9 May 1911, Page 8

AMERICA AS A WOOL MARKET.

OPPONENTS. OF TAEIFF REDUC- , ... TION, : , In view of the interest being taken in the proposal to revise tho United States wool tariff, the annual meeting of the National •■ Association of Wool Manufacturers, which was held at Washington, .was of special interest. At the meeting (according to files which have come to hand) it -was a gen-erally-expressed sentiment that an aggres- '■ sivo campaign should be undertaken for the education of the public and present the association's side of the tariff case ■with full, publicity in reply to the criti- . cisms which have been so freely directed at tho wool tariff schedule. . There did not-appear, to be any evidence of compromise/ In the course of the annual report the following occurred: "The year just closr |ng is one. which goes without regret on the part of the wool manufacturers of America. It has witnessed a. long, severe depression.' Thero have been times dur- ; ing the year. when probably one-half of the woollen machinery in tho United States was.idle. At present, perhaps, a ; somewhat better condition prevails, but the existing rate of production is altogether; unsatisfactory, and the outlook is exceedingly, uncertain. . Thero is one main cause for all this—and that is the ■persistent political agitation of which the •wool and woollen industry has been tho devoted, target. Poring the year I'JOU, In the middle of -which the Aldrich-Payno tariff was enacted, our industry as • a whole enjoyed a fair degree of prosperity. But a similar change came at tho begining of the present year. Schedule K was singled out for a particularly vicious attack by widely-read magazines and newspapers, encouraged by interests opposed to the protective system. . . . Though an effort wili undoubtedly be made in the next Congress by the "loaders of the nnti-protection majority in tho. House' of Representatives to reconstruct Schedule K, this cannot succeed without the cooperation of the-Senate and the President. It would bo most unjust to reduce tho duties on wool and tho manufacture of wool without making a proportionate reduction in tho duties on the indispensable supplies and. materials of the industry contained in other schedules of the tariff. Tho plan of schedule by schedule- revision, though earnestlyfavoured now by many sincere men, will ■- have far fewer friends next year when the process has been more searchingly considered. But to frame a hostile Tariff Bill is one thing and to secure its complete enactment is another. In order to Riicceed, tho anti-protection leaders of the House must win the assent of the Senate, where the majority Will remain at least nominally protectionist. Inasmuch as all of the so-called progressive Senators of the Middle West insisted on the maintenance of the present rates of duty on the raw wool of their constituents throughout the framing of the Aldrich-Payne law, it is improbable that a majority can bo secured in the Senate, as it* will bo constituted in December next, for any tariff revision measure which radically reduces the protection now friven to either woolprrowors or wool manufacturers. The people of the West will be nuick to understand that inadequate protection to American mills and a continent flood of imported goods from Europe would bo as disastrous to the ivoolgrowing interest .is if wool were put upon Hie free list. This is a fact which the National Association con profitably impress unon the consciousness of tho whole United States."