LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF STATISTICS, Washington, D. C., February 12, 1894. SIR: In accordance with a joint resolution of Congress I have the honor to submit a report upon the production, commerce, and consumption of wools and manufactures of wools in the leading nations of the world. Naturally, the commercial features received the greater share of attention, and I have sought to obtain the latest returns having the weight of official authority. The tariff decisions alone constitute a valuable and necessary guide to understanding recent tariff legislation on wools and woolens, and its practical working; while the elaborate tables of imports and exports, of domestic and foreign prices, covering a period of nearly thirty years, give as complete a representation of the world's experience in wool as may be drawn from purely statistical sources. In collecting and publishing such facts I believe the Government performs one of the highest of its legitimate functions, for it thus brings home to its citizens the importance of the industry, whether measured by its direct or its indirect results; the wide extension and influence of its many branches; and the relative importance, commercially and industrially, of the great nations of supply and consumption. In tracing the great changes in the course of production and trade of raw wools from one continent to another, from one country to another, and even from county to county, the pressure and limitations of competition, foreign and domestic, may be described, and proper measures taken to grant every advantage to the domestic sheep-raiser that can be given consistently with the claims and rights of the other interests of the community. It rests with the sheep farmers themselves rather than with the Government to assert and maintain a preeminence in the local or foreign wool market. The improvement in breed, looking either to increasing the average yield of wool, or to the meat qualities of the animal, a question that must be decided by each locality and according to the profits to be obtained, has been very marked among the sheep-raisers of the United States. American wool of the finer grades deservedly has held and holds a high reputation, and this has resulted from the intelligent and judicious methods of our sheep-raisers. It is only by continuing such methods that they can hope to maintain this preeminence in quality, and no effort of Government can stave off or modify the effects of internal competition, that is, the competition of one section of the country with other sections,-which is growing in intensity from year to year, and leading to a notable transfer of the wool-raising center, and to distinct changes in the general methods of sheep-raising. The best interests of the industry are not to be decided by confining the attention to domestic conditions. The same progress needed to sustain and advance the condition of the domestic sheep and wool interests, will react upon the conditions in foreign markets, and in favor of the United States, whenever it sees fit to enter into a free competition. It is in the experience of the world that the best lessons are to be found, and from them are to be drawn the policy and measures that in the long run will best subserve the continued advancement and prosperity of the wool industries of the United States. Yours, respectfully, Hon. J. G. CARLISLE, WORTHINGTON C. FORD, Chief of Bureau. Secretary of the Treasury. INTRODUCTION. If there is any one fact demonstrated by the experience of the United States in the sheep industry it is the independence, in the long run, of this interest of artificial encouragement. It has survived the restrictions and prohibitions of the mother country in colonial times, the penalties and discouragements of hostile and interested legislation, as well as the progressive settlement of the country. It has followed economic law in spite of restrictions, bounties, and financial error, and is to-day still pursuing its natural course regardless of the complaints of low prices, destructive foreign competition, and unprofitable returns. From the middle of the seventeenth century, when the general court of Massachusetts requested "those having friends in England desiring to come, would write them to bring as many sheep as convenient with them, which being carefully endeavoured, we leave the successe to God," to the last decade of the nineteenth century, the rise, development, and internal movement of sheep-raising and wool-manufacturing industries have been logical in the great lines. Opinions may differ on the cause of an increase in a certain direction; temporary advantage, as an embargo or war; the special favor of a tariff for protection or exclusion of competition, may have been more active at a certain period than an uninterrupted development on a normal basis; a locality naturally favored by geographical position or transportation facilities may have accentuated a prominence gained through invention or extensive employment of skilled labor and specialties of make; yet it may be asserted that the general trend of both industries would have been the same in the long run. The gradual removal of wool-raising as an industry to the west of the Mississippi, and still moving from the East to the West; and the establishment of manufactories in localities favored by natural and acquired advantages-water power, labor, and accessibility-have been controlled by no legislative enactment, however much the movements may seem to have been influenced in any particular year or by an accidental juncture of circumstance. The increase in the production of wool has been enormous. In sup. port of this may be cited a paragraph from Messrs. George William Bond & Co.'s annual wool circular, dated January 26, 1894: We shall find that the woolen industries of the world, and of this country in par ticular, have been marching forward and upward. In 1893 they are upon a plane so much higher than in 1860 that the products of the two periods cannot be considered |