No part of our tariff has been more scathingly denounced in Congress and by the press than what is known as “Schedule K.” No schedule that has received half the attention bestowed on Schedule K has managed to withstand the fierce onslaughts of the united tariff reformers of both political parties so successfully as the schedule covering wool and its manufactures. Repeatedly raised during the Civil War, when the urgent need of additional revenue was the sole motive of frequent tariff revision, slightly reduced in 1872 and 1883, scaled down still more in the Democratic Wilson act of 1894, it managed in the intervals between these acts to recover lost ground and, since 1897, to eclipse all previous records for high-tariff climbing. The secret of this exceptional record in our tariff history is not far to seek. It lies in the peculiar interlacing of interests between the sheep-grower of the West and the manufacturer of the East, which has no parallel in other industries. Most of the farm products are either left on the free list, like cotton, or, if protected by a duty, are not affected by it. Thus we have duties on corn, wheat, oats, rye, and meat, but no one familiar with the situation has ever seriously maintained that the duty has been more than a convenient embellishment of our tariff for the use of campaign spellbinders in farm districts. As long as we produce more cereals, meats, and other farm products than we consume, and send the surplus to the world’s markets, the prices of these products, under free competition at home, will be regulated by conditions of world supply and demand, leaving the duties a dead letter on the statute-books. Wool is a conspicuous exception in the list of American farm products. After half a century of exceptionally high protection, fixed by the beneficiaries of the tariff themselves, the American wool-grower still falls short in his output to the extent of more than one third of the domestic demand. The deficit must be covered by importation from foreign countries, the price of imported wool being enhanced by the amount of the duty. Under these conditions the duty on raw wool acts as a powerful lever in increasing the price of the domestic wool furnishing the remaining two thirds of our consumption. No wonder that the wool-grower has always been an enthusiastic advocate of a duty on raw wool.