be made in cotton mills then and later, after the act passed. In 1835 the Amoskeag Company began operations on a large scale in Manchester, N. H. The first Stark Mills were built there in 1838 and the second mills in 1839. Although depression in the business checked growth awhile, it did not prevent further investments even before the act of 1842. In a work by Robert Montgomery in 1840, he reached the same conclusions that have been reached since by competent observers, that money wages were about twice as high here as in Europe, but the product per spindle and per loom was considerably greater. The result of elaborate tables was a difference of three per cent in favor of American manufactures. The industry was successful and needed no protection. Nevertheless, more protection was given in 1842 and of course manufacturers increased their profits. It is not claimed that this was entirely due to the duties. Cotton was lower, so that here as well as in Europe there was more profit in the business. It had outgrown any need of protection.

THE GROWTH OF THE WOOLEN INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES

Unlike cotton, wool varies greatly in quality, character, and length of fiber, and the demand is greater than the supply. It has to be carefully

sorted by hand before it can be used in manufacturing. Some wools can be successfully raised in the United States, others cannot. Following their usual theories, protectionists were of course led to maintain that all wools used for making cloth in the United States must be raised in the United States, no matter what natural obstacles and reasons may stand in the way and no matter if it would be economic wisdom to raise some kinds of wool elsewhere and to take them in exchange for American products more economically raised or made here. The way to make this theory actual fact was, of course, through protective custom-house taxationthat is, by taxing all imported wools, no matter whether they could be successfully produced here or not. The result has been a burden on the woolen manufacturers and, through them, on all consumers. On home-raised wools they have had to pay the natural price plus the tariff tax, or just as little below that price as would keep out the same wool raised abroad. On the foreign wools not found practicable to raise here woolen manufacturers and consumers have to pay the foreign price plus the tariff. It will be seen at once that all the tax paid on wool actually imported goes into the treasury of the United States, while all the extra price paid to the raisers of wool in this country in consequence of the artificial price due to the tariff goes into the pockets of the home raisers-out of the pockets of

the consumers. To compensate the woolen manufacturers for both, the protection theory required and obtained a custom-house duty on woolen cloths high enough to limit materially their importation. To carry out their theory protectionists should have insisted upon absolutely prohibitory duties, but they have not succeeded in outraging the common sense of the American people to that extent.

WOOLEN MANUFACTURING AND THE TARIFF

Although we have not full accounts of the early history of the manufacture of woolen goods in the United States, we have enough to show us that the general course of events was like that in cotton manufacturing. Both spinning and weaving continued to be done on the spinning wheel and the hand loom even after Arthur and John Scholfield, from England, established a factory at Byfield, Mass., in 1794, introducing machinery for carding wool and for dressing (fulling) woolen goods. Development was impeded by the deficient supply and poor quality of wool. This was remedied by the importation from Spain of fine merino sheep in 1802 and later. By 1810 the carding and spinning of wool by machinery was begun in some of the cotton mills of Rhode Island. In Taft's Notes there is mention of the Peacedale Manufacturing Company, which began in 1804 and is still in active operation. It is

said that the spinning jenny was first applied to wool in this factory. A rough estimate, the best that could be made in the absence of better data, in Bulletin of Wool Manufacturers (486) states that the value of woolen goods made in factories rose from four million dollars in 1810 to nineteen million dollars in 1815. Renewed heavy importation of English goods after the war interfered with our home manufactures and showed that the duties were not protective. The tariff of 1816, therefore, raised them, making them the same as those on cotton goods, twenty-five per cent, to be reduced in three years to twenty per cent in 1819. But before 1819 came, this reduction was postponed and it was never made, furnishing us with illustration of the difficulty of reducing the tariff rates through horizontal reduction, for there is always an active body of interested manufacturers to see to it that the proposed reduction is postponed, or abandoned, while there is no organized body to see to it that the reduction is continued. In this tariff (of 1816) there was no minimum-valuation clause for woolen, as there was for cotton goods; hence, later, there was less protection for woolens than for cottons. The duty on imported wool was fifteen per cent. It will be seen that this tariff afforded only slight protection to woolen manufacturers. Taussig says that the provisions of the tariff act of 1824 did not materially improve their condition. Under it the duty on woolen

goods was raised to thirty per cent, and to thirtythree and one-third per cent after 1825. This was counterbalanced by raising the duties on imported wool from twenty per cent to twenty-five per cent after 1825, and to thirty per cent after 1826, except on wool costing ten cents a pound or less. Ever since 1816 wool has been imported to supplement the domestic supply, and, therefore, the protection may be allowed not to have been excessive from the protectionist point of view. The woolen manufacture continued to increase steadily and in 1828 was securely established.

HIGHER DUTIES SOUGHT

In 1823 the woolen manufacturers of Boston organized to promote the securing of higher protective duties, which were not needed. The testimony given in 1828 by woolen manufacturers before a Committee on Manufactures of the House of Representatives proved this clearly. It showed that the difficulties arising from lack of skill and experience and other such temporary obstacles no longer had influence in preventing the growth of this industry. One manufacturer testified that the application of the power loom to weaving woolens had been made in the United States earlier than in England. This is hardly remarkable when we take into account the superior American ingenuity in invention and