Cheap Mckinley Stockings

Protectionist papers have been saying that the talk about "McKinley prices" has ceased. They pretend that the whole thing never did have any trnth in it, and was only a scare of the "free trade organs" to catch votes last fall. Some of these papers have taken the trouble to prepare lists of articles in which prices are the same as last year or lower. This was of conrse easy to do, as the McKinley law did not raise duties on everything, and where it did raise them on articles like farm producís such increase could have no effect whatever in raising priees; btit these protection jonrnals make a very long leap at a conclusión when they claim on the strength of these lists that no prices have advanced. One thing that lends color to their claim is that some prices that were at first advanced by the McKinley law have again fallen to the oíd figure. Bnt how has this been brought about? A protectionist trade joornal of high standing has given the answer to this question. This is The New York Dry Goods Economist, which says : "The effect of the new tariff has been to bring into the market several noveltdes that give the effect of value without an actual expenditure of cast in the manufacture. So in imported hosiery we stïll have what is known in the trade as the 'twenty-five cent stocking,' but in quality and workmanship it is slightly inferior. It has been adroiüy cheapened. The customer gets the article at the old price, but it is not as good, and no advertismg lies can make it as good." And so McKinky's cheapness in thia case means debasing the quality. "Cheap and nasty go together." If the cotton growers of the south were protectionists, and if they believed that a duty on raw cotton could help them, they would soon be rushing to congress to beg for protection from the cheap pauper grown cotton of Egypt. A cargo of 2,150 bales of Egyptian cotton wor' 350,000 was recently landed at Nev. York. When McKinley was f ooling the farmers he forgot the cotton growers. The consumption of wool in Great Britain and in the United States in 1885 and 1889 was as follows: 1885. 1889. Great Britain366,000,000 468,000,000 Inc. 28 pjx. United 400,000,000 38500,000 Dec. i p.c Why is it, then, our high protection does not help us to outgrow England in manufacturing woolen goods?