WOOL AND THE WOOL TRADE. The term wool is now applied almost exclusively to the fleece of the sheep. The distinction between wool and hair is more easily understood than described. When the wool brought to bear in the comparison is that of sheep, the distinction is tolerably well marked ; but in various other animals it seems often difficult to decide whether hair or wool be the proper appellation for the external covering; and hence perhaps the reason for the appro priation of the term wool principally to the coating of the sheep. Wool compared with hair is generally softer, more flexible, and more disposed to undergo the felting process, which imparts to it so much value in manufactures. Many of the wilder animals, such as the beaver, the racoon, the wild cat, and the otter, produce both hair and wool, the hair forming the long and conspicuous outer fibres, and the shorter fibres of wool lying hidden beneath. The goats of certain regions of Asia Minor, Tibet, and South America, yield woolly fibres of great beauty, which not only equal those of the sheep, but greatly surpass them ; this wool, however, as we shall see farther on, is too costly to come prominently into competition with that of the sheep.
In a commercial and manufacturing point of view, a notice of wool may consistently be confined to that of the sheep; and for an account of the varieties of sheep, and of the wool they bear, as preliminary to the present article, we refer to the article Woos, which immediately precedes.
The history of wool in its unmanufactured atato, as regards the legis lative enactments to which the commodity has been subjected, forms, however, a distinct subject, and is full of instruction in reference to the principles of commercial economy. It enables us to trace the gradual growth of just opinions on such matters, and the many conflicts by which those changes were wrought. Wool, as An article of wealth, has been singularly exposed to these contests ; for the agriculturists and manufacturers for ages took different views of what measures in refer ence to the wool trade were for the national benefit, influenced perhaps by what they deemed their own interests. The reason lies in this cir cumstance: that whereas the silk and cotton manufacturers work upon materials brought wholly from abroad, the woollen manufacturer employs materials both of home and of foreign produce ; and AS this Applies to foreign as well as to English manufacturers, there have arisen four distinct points upon which the legislature has from time to time had to decide, namely—the free exportation of British wool ; the restrictions on such exportation ; the free importation of foreign wool ; And the restrictions on such importation. The reasons which have led
the two great class interests to take opposite sides in the question, and the effects which that opposition has had on the wool trade, will bo seen from the following brief details.
In the time of Edward I. a duty was imposed on the exportation of British wool ; And great complaints were made on his increasing the. duty in 12913 from 20s. to 40s. per bag. Lynn, Newcastle, Kingston upon-Hull, Boston, Yarmouth, Ipswich, Southampton, Bristol, and London were appointed ports from whence wool might be shipped, and at which customs' officers were authorised to receive the dues. When the king had terminated some of the wars in which he had been engaged, he lowered the duty from 40s. to half a mark per bag ; but the high duty was again imposed at a subsequent period. In 1337 we hear of the first enactment for prohibiting the exportation of British wool, a measure coincident with the attempts of Edward III. to encou rage the woollen manufacture in England. Subsequently the same king obtained grants of wool as the means of defraying the expenses of his wars; and the gross absurdity of his former restrictions could not be better shown than by the fact, that while he ostensibly prohibited the export of British wool, he sent his own quota for sale abroad, as he could there obtain a higher price for it than at home. Throughout the remainder of his reign Edward had frequent contests with the Commons and the merchants respecting his grants of wool, the duty payable on wool sold, and the prohibition to exportation ; the contests being not between agriculturists and manufacturers, but between the king on one side and all his subjects on the other. By a statute of 27 Edw. III., the towns of Newcastle, York, Bristol, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter, Caermar then, Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda were appointed staples for wool ; that is, places where alone wool could be sold. Mayors of the staple were appointed to seal every sack of wool sold ; a customs' duty of half a mark per sack was charged to denizens, and of 10s. a sack to aliens; and the power of exporting was limited to merchant strangers, or to Hanse town merchants.