20 
above, the supply of wool was cight pounds to each individual, (200,000,000 
pounds to 25,000,000 people in loyal States;) but the consumption was seareely 
more than seven pounds, as an immense amount of domestic wool and woollens 
remained in the hands of wool merchants, manufacturers, and wholesale and 
retail traders, and in government stores on the first of July, 1865. , 
Thus the average consumption was raised from four anda half pounds to seven 
pounds, or fifty-five per cent. through the waste of war and the scarcity of cotton, 
The Commissioner’s estimate would be equivalent to fifteen and a half pounds, 
or three times as much as is required for ordinary consumption. Even a heavy 
increase, from a growing preference to wearing woollens, would not necessarily 
require more than six pounds to each individual. 
Again, the Commissioner in his estimate, heretofore quoted, divides the woollen 
onsumption into two portions as follows: 
Foreign woollens ..-.... 33, 000, 000 Ibs., requiring 132, 000, 000 lbs. wool. 
U.S. manufactures... ..- 117, 000, 000 lbs., requiring 468, 000, 000 Ibs. wool. 
EP Otel = ove sp aa! 150, 000, 000 600, 000, 000 Ibs. wool. 
This is his estimate, for he assumes four pounds of wool in the dirt for one 
pound of cloth, in estimating a tax of one cent per pound upon wool, to amount 
to four cents per pound for cloth, (and the manufactures make the ratio the 
same,) and upon this estimate he figures a tax for wool protection of $71,250,000. 
If his premises were correct, and all this 150,000,000 pounds of woollens were 
made of foreign-grown wool, it would be true that we must have, in some 
shape, a yearly supply of 600,000,000 pounds of wool. But he forgets that 
100,000,000 pounds of this is native, 2,4, pounds of which wil} make a pound 
of cloth. Though he does not fail to use this error in swelling his tax, let it be 
deducted in ascertaining how much wool our manufacturers must seek abroad 
on his own hypothesis. Then the statement would read: 
United States wool--.. 100, 000, 000 lbs., producing 48, 500, 000 Ibs. cloth, 
MEETOM AE cis oh 2 ase 274, 000, 000 lbs., producing 68, 500, 000 Ibs. cloth, 
Annual manufacture... 374, 000, 000 117, 000, 000 Ibs. cloth. 
Where do our manufacturers obtain 274.000,000 Ibs. of foreign wool ? 
This is almost equal to the total importation of four years of war, and lacks 
but little of the entire importation of seventeen years of peace, from 1841 to 1857 
inclusive, which amounted to 283,146,923 Ibs. 
Where is all this wool obtained? Not of Great Britain. She imports little 
more than 200,000,000 pounds per annum, and manufactures most of it. Not 
of South America. The most of hers goes to Great Britain, and nearly all of 
that produced in the wool-growing-colonies of South Africa and Australia. 
The foreign wool of Great Britain, in 1865, from official figures, was as fol- 
lows : 
MGMINM le tata) ac chao Snes Se Re MRR Beaton = Sea evecmfol ete 209, 364, 249 Ibs. 
Exports of foreign and colonial......-.-------. genet 82, 443,755 “ 
Remaining for consumption..... ope, bests sol as Sp 126,920,494 “ 
If the vast manufacturing system of Great Britain consumes but 126,920,494 
pounds of foreign and colonial wool, will the special commissioner tell how our 
woollen manufacturing interest has attained so surpassing a magnitude, and 
how it is to obtain more than twice as much foreign wool as the British man- 
ufactures require ? 
