Carpets And Carpet Wool

Consistency is unknown to the free trader. He has been telling us all along that the McKinley tariff would make goods acaree and dear, thus oppressing the poor. Yet the free trade journals of this oity did not hesitate to jump to the other side of the fence as boom as they heard of the recent extensive auction sale of carpets and charge the abundance and cheapness oí carpets which it indicated solely and dii-eetly to the new tariff. The absurdity of their contention in this regard, and its direct oppoeitlon to their previoaisly advanced theorles, rob it of all forcé as a free trade argument. It i moro co'mpletely demolished by the faete relativo to carpet wool pricos, to wliich they attrlbute all the present dlfficulty in the carpet trade. In the fii-st tem months of the new lnw's existenco, endlng July 81, oor Importa of carpet wool were 80,160,217 pounds, valued at $8,464,318, an average of 10 1-2 cents a pound. The duty of 32 per cent. ad valorem bring.s the price to the manufacturer up to 18 6-7 cents a pound. That is tho average price paid by the carpet manufacturer for carpet wool this year. In the corresponding months of last year onder the old tariff imports of carpet wool were 71,081,768 pounds, valued at $8,257,740, or 11 3-5 ets. a pound. The old duty of 2 1-2 ets. a pound added made the price at ,he carpet mili 14 1-10 cents a pound. n other words, the manufacturor is getting his carpet wool eheaper on an average this year than last. If the full amount of the increase d the tariff were added to the price of carpet wool the consequent ad■nnce in prices of carpets would be ineignificant. Mr. Arthur T. Lyman, of the Liowell Carpet Company, a ree trader, saya it would be Ipks than four cents in the price of the best Brussels oarpets. The Biglow Carpet Company saya that it would be loss tli.ui three cents, and that "it would not be feit, realizad or binn-n in the retail prices at all." We have the additional evidence that, as a matter of fact, many grades of the cheaper carpets. as well ,'is of the dearer kinds, are sold at loss price under the new tariff tfaan under the old. The reductions fshown in the followinK comparison would have been impossible had the raw material advanced as the. free trarïers represent: PRICBS OF CAKPETB. Trice Sept., PriccSept., Hartford Carpet Co - 1890. 1891. Moquettes $1 45 1 Sb Imperijil, 3 ply 85 80 Extra superfihe o."., 60 Lowell Mfg. Co.- Brussels, 5frame r 1 20 1 17 In attributing the depression in carpets to the tariff, the free trader, in addition to attacking hls former poeittion as to the effects of the new tarïff, is at variance with all the (acte in the case. The only line of reasoning he seems capable of faithfully foliowinR is this: The tariff is the source of all our misfortunes. An auction sale of carpets is a misfortune. Therefore, the tariff ia