More About Wool

The National Wool Record should stop publishing foreign wool quotations or elimb down off its tariff hobby. Wool is said to have raised in the United States because the tarifC has excluded foreign wools from our markets with consequent increase in the demand tor American wools. But when you exclude foreign wools from a given market you must necessarily, to that extent, lessen the demand for the same. If an increase in demand brings an increase in price in the one instance, a diniinution of demand must cause a crease in price upon the other. This is the legitímate inference of the protectionist's logic. But it does not agree With the facts in the case. Wools have advanced quite as much in foreign markets as they have in our own since the Dingley tariff became law. If the wool is worth qnite as much outsíde the tarïft wall as it is within it, that wall would seem to be an unnecessary obstruction to trade. There are, however, "two reasonable explanations for the 'course of the wool market. The first is that during the depression of the last sevtn years the wool business suffered, as every other t'usiness has suffered. But unlike masy other lines, the wool grower has a stock in trade Whlch is easily converted into another merchantable product. Plocks not only in this country but in Australia wei-e converted into mutton and the prcduetion of wool curtailed to a larg-e degree. Added to this is the fact that during the past season the lcsses in Australian flocks, from inclement weather, have been unparalleled and che exportable surplus of Australian wool will be less than it has for years. In the fact of a "long anticipated" return of better times this alone should be sufflcient to advance the priee of wool. The second reason for the advance of wool is that, with the above conditions in view, an immense combination of capital has cornered the wool stocks of the world and is holding them for future profif.