Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/359

 THE MCKINLEY TARIFF ACT 337 the most important single item in the manufacture of woolien goods. On cloths worth 80 cents or less per pound, 35 cents per pound, plus 35 /o ed valorem. The old duty was On cloths worth more than 80 cents per pound, 35 cents per pound, plus 40 /o ad valorem. On cloths worth 30 cents or less per pound, 33 cents per pound, plus 40 /o ad q:alorem. The duty under the On cloths worth between 30 and 40 cents per pound, 38 cents per pound, plus 40 /o ad McKinley Act is valorem. On cloths worth more than 40 cents per pound, 44 cents per pound, plus 50 /o ad valorem. It will be seen that, while there is no marked change in the rate of duty on the cheapest kinds of woolien cloth, there is a distinct and real increase, even after making allowance for the changes due to the heavier duty on wool, in the rates on the more expensive qualities. For example, on woollen cloths worth between 30 and 50 cents per pound, the total duty is in the neighboar- hood of 150 per cent upon the valuc a rate so very high that it is safe to say that congress would never have imposed it except in the guise of a compound specific and ad valorem duty. It is hardly necessary to inform the sagacious reader that the heavier duty on the finer and more expensive cloths is due to the fact that those only are imported into the United States. The coarser and cheaper cloths, made chiefly of domestic wool, with an ad- mixture of cotton and shoddy, are not imported under any circumstances, and, indeed, there is ground for belief that with free wool and without any duty whatever upon woollens, these goods would be made in the United States without fear of com- petition from foreign manufacturers. More expensive goods, however, continue to be imported in great quantities, notwith- standing a duty which was already high under the earlier legis- lation; and it is to the continued importation of these and to aic domestic manufacturers in undertaking their production that the duties in the McKinley Act have been adjusted. This appears still more strikingly in the duties on dress goods. The wooHen cloths referred to in the last paragraph are goods for men's wear. On dress goods for women the duties under the new Act have been changed thus: If worth 20 cents a yard or less, duty 5 cents a yard plus 35 /o. The old duty was. If worth over 20 cents a yard, duty 7 cents a yard plus 40 ]o. No. 2.--VOL. I z