In addition to the compensatory duty of forty-four cents is the duty to protect from difference in the cost of production, which is 50 or 55 per cent of the value of the cloth. There is probably no doubt but this duty is all out of proportion to the actual difference. Forty-four years ago, when practically the same duties now in force on wool were wrested from an unwilling Congress by a combination of wool-growers and woollen manufacturers, all that the latter asked was 25 per cent to cover difference in the cost of production. American labor has advanced, but so has European labor—and still more has machinery increased the output. Of course these high duties make imported cloth very expensive, and enable American manufacturers to hold up their prices. As a matter of fact, the duty makes the American consumer of woollen goods pay just about double what his English cousin pays. In 1908 I was shown by a gentleman who has for years been at the head of one of the best of the wholesale cloth houses of New York, a bundle of matched samples of woollen goods—American and English—with carefully worked out statements of cost here and abroad. The goods had been matched by one of the leading woollen experts of England. I was unable to detect any difference in quality, and only the slightest in finish. There was practically no choice, so slight was the difference. But note the price. For an American serge costing $1.37½ a yard the price of the matched English goods in Bradford was 67 cents. The English equivalent of an American fabric costing $1.50 was 78.05 cents. Beautiful blue light-weight serges, such as are used for men’s summer suits, cost in America $1.80, in Bradford 81.2 cents. The mohair which is used so much in this country for women’s summer travelling suits can be bought in Bradford for 27¼ cents; here it is wholesaled at 70 cents and costs at retail $1.00. This was the showing over a large range of goods. It amounted to this, that the English price was only about half the American.