Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The farmer and the agriculturist, who manufacture nothing, but who pay the
increased price which the tariff imposes upon every agricultural implement,
upon all he wears, and upon all he uses and owns, except the increase of
his flocks and herds and such things as his husbandry produces from the
soil, is invited to aid in maintaining the present situation; and he is
told that a high duty on imported wool is necessary for the benefit of
those who have sheep to shear, in order that the price of their wool may be
increased. They, of course, are not reminded that the farmer who has no
sheep is by this scheme obliged, in his purchases of clothing and woolen
goods, to pay a tribute to his fellow-farmer as well as to the manufacturer
and merchant, nor is any mention made of the fact that the sheep owners
themselves and their households must wear clothing and use other articles
manufactured from the wool they sell at tariff prices, and thus as
consumers must return their share of this increased price to the
tradesman.
I think it may be fairly assumed that a large proportion of the sheep owned
by the farmers throughout the country are found in small flocks, numbering
from twenty-five to fifty. The duty on the grade of imported wool which
these sheep yield is 10 cents each pound if of the value of 30 cents or
less and 12 cents if of the value of more than 30 cents. If the liberal
estimate of 6 pounds be allowed for each fleece, the duty thereon would be
60 or 72 cents; and this may be taken as the utmost enhancement of its
price to the farmer by reason of this duty. Eighteen dollars would thus
represent the increased price of the wool from twenty-five sheep and $36
that from the wool of fifty sheep; and at present values this addition
would amount to about one-third of its price. If upon its sale the farmer
receives this or a less tariff profit, the wool leaves his hands charged
with precisely that sum, which in all its changes will adhere to it until
it reaches the consumer. When manufactured into cloth and other goods and
material for use, its cost is not only increased to the extent of the
farmer's tariff profit, but a further sum has been added for the benefit of
the manufacturer under the operation of other tariff laws. In the meantime
the day arrives when the farmer finds it necessary to purchase woolen goods
and material to clothe himself and family for the winter. When he faces the
tradesman for that purpose, he discovers that he is obliged not only to
return in the way of increased prices his tariff profit on the wool he
sold, and which then perhaps lies before him in manufactured form, but that
he must add a considerable sum thereto to meet a further increase in cost
caused by a tariff duty on the manufacture. Thus in the end he is aroused
to the fact that he has paid upon a moderate purchase, as a result of the
tariff scheme, which when he sold his wool seemed so profitable, an
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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