THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. 5 



Labor does not produce the pine, nor does it gain any great pro- 

 portion of its market value.* 



The American people are clothed very expensively. They im- 

 port about half their woolen goods, and pay thereon an enormous 

 tax to the Government, amounting in 1885-1886 to $35,600,000. 

 The other half of their clothing they buy of domestic manufact- 

 urers, and may be assumed to pay an unnaturally high price to 

 about the same extent. We may say, then, that in twenty years 

 the people have paid a bounty of about $700,000,000 to domestic 

 manufacturers and about the same amount in taxes to the Gov- 

 ernment, 



The average wage of Americans is, as is well known, consid- 

 erably higher than that of the English ; yet Mr. Mulhall estimates 

 that the American works forty-nine days in the year to supply 

 himself with clothing, while the Englishman accomplishes the 

 same thing in thirty-four. This result has been brought about 

 by the wool tariff of 1867, which imposed a heavy duty on an 

 article not made or greatly added to in value by labor, wool, 

 and also on woolen clothing. The history of the effect of this 

 duty is interesting and even ludicrous. Foreign wools are needed 

 to mix with American wools to make good cloth. Accordingly, 

 when the tariff was put on wool the manufacturers found that 

 the people would not buy the high-priced product, but bought 

 foreign goods. Then they began to adulterate their woolen 

 goods with shoddy and cotton. But, in spite of everything, the 

 woolen industry was depressed, and the price of wool refused to 

 go up.f Some of them saw the moral; but only the other day I 

 was talking with one who expressed his opposition to the Mills 

 bill by saying, " We do not think it will hurt our business ; we know 

 it." On being asked if he did not think free wool and a duty of 

 thirty-eight per cent a fair equivalent for the present duty, he 

 started and clearly showed he had no accurate idea of what the 



* Soon after the duty was put on pine-lumber the pine was advanced $1 per thousand 

 feet. Seeing this, the men at the camps in Michigan thought it was a good time to ask for 

 a slight increase in pay, inasmuch as the tariff was, they were assured, for their benefit. 

 They asked an increase from $1.50 to $1.75 per day, an increase equivalent to perhaps 5 

 per cent of the increased profit. Thereupon they were all dismissed. Canadians were im- 

 ported at $1.25 per day, and were only worked three fourths time at that. Great is "the 

 American system." — " Indianapolis Signal " (Labor paper). 



f After the enactment of the high duty on wool in 186*7, both wool-manufacturing and 

 wool-growing were very much depressed, owing to the fact that the public would not buy 

 woolens at the enhanced prices. During this period it was very common for the commis- 

 sion-merchant to find that he had over-advanced to the manufacturer. The almost invari- 

 able result was a mortgage on the mill-property and a foreclosure. In this way A. T. 

 Stewart acquired mill after mill, but even he failed to make his factories pay, and he is 

 believed to have lost heavily by his woolen-mills. At his death his estate was burdened by 

 a large number of these properties. — From the paper of Rowland Hazard, woolen manu- 

 facturer, before the Chicago Free-Trade Conference, November 12, 1885. 



