68 



The inference to be drawn from these facts is, that either wool needs a higher 

 protective tariff than that of 1842, or else that it encounters a home competition 

 which operates against it with stronger force than the importation of foreign 

 wools. 



The tariff act of 1842 was passed when the currency of the country was 

 very low, as will be seen from the following table giving the circulation in 

 January of each year and prices of wool in same month. 



This table shows that the prices of wool did not advance and recede with the 

 amount of the currency. In some years it seemed to be influenced by it ; in 

 others not at all. The protective duties of 1842 did not place it under the 

 operation of an increase in the currency any more, if as much as the ad valorem 

 duty of the tariff of 1846. Indeed, so many are the elements affecting prices, 

 especially of wool, that we must take a very comprehensive view of them, else 

 statistical tables of wool production, prices, imports and exports of avooI and 

 woollens, and the currency, will serve no other purpose than create doubts, or 

 mislead entirely. 



But still there is clearly seen the great fact that from 1824 to the commence- 

 ment of the civil war the growing of wool has not been as profitable as it ought 

 to have been, or as all ought to wish it may become, when its great importance, 

 in every light in which it may be regarded, is considered. We think there is a 

 cause for this past unfavorable condition of the wool interest ; and this cause is 

 one that has never been mentioned, so far as our recollection serves. It is found 

 in the fact that wool has a great domestic competitor, namely, cotton. 



The veiy fact which so generally existed before the rebellion — the mixture 

 of cotton with wool, even in broadcloths — shows the compulsion on manufac- 

 turers to avail themselves of the cheaper material in order to sell even broad- 

 •cloths, which, far more than any other dress goods, were freed from the compe- 

 tition of cotton cloth ; and this mixing of wool and cotton was most general at 

 a time when wool was so unremuuerative to the Avool-grower that the number of 

 sheep in the country was actually decreasing. 



