67 
in greatly over-estimating, in his recent report to Congress, the present average 
annual consumption of wool and woollens. A charge so grave as this, and ap- 
pearing in an official publication, would seem to require something in the way of 
a reply or defence, and I accordingly submit the following statements : 
As a basis for a proposed change in the tariff on wool and woollens, the au- 
thorized representatives of the wool-growers and woollen manufacturers submitted 
to Congress in May, 1866, through the medium of the Revenue Commission, a 
series of reports, which purported to contain the most full and reliable informa- 
tion respecting the condition and prospects of the great industries in question. 
These reports may be found in the bound volume of the Report of the Revenue 
Commission, (pages 347 to 480, inclusive,) and from the high character and in- 
telligence of the names attached to them, must be accepted by the public, as 
they have been by the Special Commissioner of the Revenue, as of unquestion- 
able authority. Pie 
By referring to these reports, pages 423 and 424, it will be scen that the 
nnmber of sets of woollen machinery (a set forming the unit of calculation) 
actually employed in the United States on the 25th of October, 1865, as re- 
ported to the Woollen Manufacturers’ Association, was 4,100. The committee 
further state that all the sets of machinery in the country were not reported, and 
they estimate the actual number to be considerably larger, viz., 5,000. 
They moreover show, in an elaborate table based on careful inquiry and cor- 
respondence, that the actual consumption of scoured wool, on the 4,100 sets of 
machinery reported, averaged 2,252,545 pounds per week, or 117,132,340 pounds 
per annum. Supposing the 900 sets not reported to consume scoured wool in 
an equal ratio with the 4,100 sets actually reported, we hence have, according 
to the statement of the best informed woollen manufacturers of the United States, 
an annual consumption of scoured wool, on the machinery then in existence, of 
142,844,317 pounds. Making all proper allowance for shrinkage, it will, 
therefore, be seen that the Special Commissioner would have been warranted in 
assuming a larger figure than 117,000,000 pounds as the annual product in 
cloth, of the existing woollen machinery of the United States in prosperous times. 
This last limitation the Commissioner was careful to express, for it is not to be 
supposed that the people will construct expensive machinery without some reason- 
able anticipation that its employment will be found expedient and advantageous. 
Now it is submitted that the Special Commissioner of the Revenue was war- 
ranted in assuming the above statement (the correctness of which was fully vouched 
for by the appended signatures of the leading wool-growers and woollen manu- 
facturers of the country) as the basis of his estimates; and that if a blunder 
has been committed in over-estimating, “the crime of intentional misrepresenta- 
tion” certainly cannot be laid to Ais account. 
As regards the estimate of the weight of the foreign woollens imported into 
the United States during 1866, he can only say that it was made for the Special 
Commissioner by experts, and by averaging the actual weight of the different 
varieties of fabrics, and that its correctness is susceptible of the most ample proof. 
Again, it is further charged that the Commissioner has fallen into another 
grievous error in assuming that four pounds of wool are required in all cases to 
make one pound of cloth, and that the tax on wool aggregates to the consumer 
in this proportion; the specific charge being that all wool does not shrink in this 
proportion, but only certain varieties. 
In reply to this he would say that he does not find in the officially published 
estimates by the wool-growers and woollen-manufacturers, as the basis for the 
calculation of compensating duties on woollens, any limitation of this shrinkage. 
They apply it most unmistakably to all wools, and use the following lan- 
guage—(See Report of Revenue Commission, page 447 :) 
“ To determine the amount of reimbursing specific duties which the manufac- 
turer should receive as an equivalent for the proposed increased duty on wool, 
