The Price Of Wool

The article in our columns last week showing how the price of wool n this country has been higher under ow tarifFon wool or free wool than under higher tariffs on wool, has excited considerable and widespread attention. The republicans were quick to see how it destroyed their 3osition on the tariff question and the Detroit Tribune in a long editorial article on Wednesday attacks the igures given in our article. The Tribune admits a difference in the price of wool, and the figures of the authorities it seems to rely upon, it admits,do not agree with themselves. The reason for this ought to be obvious. There are various grades of wool. The Argus, in its article, traced the price of the same grades through the various rise and fall of prices. The figures the Tribune lies upon do not specify the grade but merely the price of wool. They might denote the price of the finest grade or the coarsest grade, and every wool dealer knows that difterent grades of wool command very different prices. The Argus' figures were correct because they trace the same grade of wool through different years and do not take the highest grade one year and the lowest another. Furthermore, the Argus' figures are identical, or nearly so, with the prices of wool as given by an editor of the New York Tribune. According to republican doctrine, this ought to be certifícate enough of their correctness. Furthermore, the Argus' figures agfee with those of Ainsworth R. Spofford, the librarían ot Congress, whose statistics are appealcd to by all parties as accurate, and which figures are computed only from official sources. The greatest difference in price found during the war, when gold was at a heavy premium, is made by the Argus reducing the price of wool to a gold basis and the Tribune reljing on the currency basis. The figures given by the Argus are drawn from official sources, and it is only because the lesson they teacli is put bevond question that the Tribunewould seek to throw doubt upon them. But even the Detroit Tribune's figures show a falling in price of wool under high tariffs.