Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/356

 334 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL has therefore been obtained almost exclusively by importation. The demand for an increase in the rate of duty upon it has been due chiefly to a suspicion, which existed rather in the minds of the self-styled advocates of the farmers than in the mhads of the farmers themselves, that wool belonging properly to the clothing or combing class has been entered as carpet wool and so has escaped the higher duty. This suspicion explains the division of carpet wool into two classes according to its value, and the higher duty upon the more valuable class. It explains also the provision, before referred to, by which carpet wool having any a_mixture of merino or English blood is to be treated as belonging to the higher classes. The hacrease of the duty upon carpet wool has been a thorn in the flesh for the manufacturers of carpets, whose industry is large, and is carried on under a domestic competition so keen as to make impossible any unusual profits. Moreover, their processes of manufacture are little, if at all, behind those ha European countries, and foreign competition is not much to be feared; the haect advantage which the manufacturers are sup- posed to get, that of bolstering. the duty on their own product, is consequently not very tempting to them. Some pronnnent manufacturers of late have come out squarely in favour of free wool; in other words, have left the Republicans and joined the Democrats. From the public point of view, the duty on carpet wool must be regarded as an unreasonable ob- stacle, difficult to defend on any ground, to a simple and natural division of labour. The free raw material cry was raised against it with effect, and the item was one of those ill-judged details in the new Act which contributed to the recent Republican defeat. On clothhag and combing wool the changes of duty, as the reader will see, are not considerable, and serve to emphasize the opposition of the Republican party to the Democratic policy of free wool rather than to make any substantial change. The mainten- ance of the high duties upon wool, which were imposed during the course of the Civil War, and which I have described else- where at some length,  is due to a curious turn of historical causes. During the last two generations the general tendency has been for wool-growing to shift to new countries, in which the population was not yet dense enough for agriculture proper. As improved means of communication have made possible the transportation of wool for great distances, the wool-growing of the world has been transferred largely to Australia, the Argenthe  In my Tariff Histor!t of the Lited States, pt. iv., chap. iii.