WOOLANDWOOLTRADE

Characteristics and Value of Wool. THERE are few words which it is at once so easy to understand, and so hard to define, as the word WOOL. To say, with Johnson, that wool is "the fleece of the sheep," is to say too little; but to assert, with one of his latest editors, that wool is "any short thick hair," is to assert a great deal too much. The differences which demarcate nearly all varieties of wool from nearly all varieties of hair, as those terms are respectively used in commerce and in ordinary speech, are palpable enough; but to discriminate with nice accuracy between the hairy wool of some sheep, and the wool-like hair of some goats, might puzzle a physiologist as well as a philologist.

Wool, how defined. For our present purpose, Professor Owen's definition may suffice. "Wool," he says, "is a peculiar modification of hair, characterised by fine transverse or oblique lines, from 2000 to 4000 in the extent of an inch, indicative of a minutely imbricated scaly surface—when viewed under the microscope—on which, and on its curved or twisted form, depends its remarkable felting property." Many animals have, in a state of nature, both wool and hair; the short and soft covering underlying the long and harsh one. Beaver's wool, for example, is well known in commerce; and "wool of bat," though it does not figure in the prices current, is, perhaps, more widely known still. But in this article we are concerned only with the wool of the sheep, and with those analogous products of the llama and the goat, which, like it, are employed in textile manufactures.

Varieties of wool in a single fleece. A single fleece, whatever its character, yields many varieties of wool. The finest grows on the shoulders and along the back; the next in fineness under the shoulders and along the ribs. The coarsest is on the haunches and below the belly. These may be called the main divisions of ordinary wool, but the classification of the wool-sorts is much more minute—"prime lock, choice lock, picked lock, superhead, head, downrights, second abb, livery, breech," are the usual commercial designations of the various sorts. The relative fineness of the fleece depends on that of the animal's skin, and on all the causes which induce or check the secretion from the glands of the skin of that "yolk" or natural soap, which at once nourishes the wool and protects it from external injury by matting it together. Raspail examined the skin of the fetus of a sheep, and found it studded with globules of uniform size arranged round groups of white spots in quincunxes, indicating the places whence the woolly fibres were to grow. On the cuticle of the temple he found, instead of the white spots, vesicles projecting like urns, the sides of which were granulated in a similar way. These vesicles were the rudiments of hairs.

Vauquelin analysed the glandular secretion or "yolk," and found it to consist of (1.) a soapy matter with a basis of potash; (2.) a small quantity of carbonate of potash; (3.) traces of acetate of potash; (4.) traces of lime; (5.) an atom of muriate of potash; and (6.) an animal oil. All these constituents he found in a number of samples of various origin. The coarsest wools rarely contain less than 20 per cent. of yolk. South Down wools average from 45 to 50 per cent. The finest wools of La Bré are said to contain from 60 to 75, and those of Electoral Saxony as much as 80 per cent.

The qualities which mainly govern the classification and commercial value of wools are—(1.) the fineness of the fibre; (2.) its softness and elasticity; (3.) soundness of staple; (4.) colour; (5.) cleanness; (6.) length of staple. The old classification of wools into carding or clothing wools (short stapled) and combing or worsted wools (long stapled), has now less significance than it used to have; recent improvements in machinery having enabled the wool-comber to work upon wools of much shorter staple than formerly.

(1.) The well known experiments of Dr Parry on the relative fineness of wools were made on fleeces of nineteen sorts. The finest fibre of all was that of a Spanish ewe, and its mean diameter was $\backslash frac\{1\}\{127\}$ of an inch. The mean diameter of the wool of a Merino ram was $\backslash frac\{1\}\{128\}$ of an inch; that of a Rambouillet ewe, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{127\}$; that of a South Down $\backslash frac\{1\}\{126\}$; that of an Anglo-Negrette ram, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{127\}$; that of a Wil-

shire ewe, $\backslash frac\{1\}\{127\}$ of an inch. The average diameter of the coarsest Character- istics and Value of Wool. The average diameter of the coarsest Character- istics and Value of Wool. Dr Ure's experiments give results nearly similar to those of Dr Parry. The filaments of the fine sorts of wool measured by Dr Ure ranged from $\backslash frac\{1\}\{128\}$ to $\backslash frac\{1\}\{126\}$ of an inch in diameter. By means of a most ingenious instrument of recent invention, one hundred hairs, selected from different parts of the fleece, may be subjected to a prescribed pressure, which is registered on a minute index. Twelve fibres of a very fine Austrian fleece, thus measured, only equalled in thickness a single fibre from a Leicester sheep.¹

(2.) The demonstration of the peculiar structure of the woolly fibre, by the use of powerful magnifiers, is due to the late Mr Yonatt, who carried on a long series of experiments with great care and patience. If a lock of wool be held up to the light, it will be perceived that all its fibres are twisted into corkscrew-like ringlets. All varieties of wool present something of this appearance, although in very different degrees. But if these fibres be subjected to a powerful microscope, they will be seen to consist of central stems from which spring circlets of tiny leaf-shaped projections. In the finer sorts of wool these projections present at first the appearance of minute serrations, like the teeth of a fine saw, but on closer inspection they resolve themselves into leaves or scales. In the coarser sorts the scaly or leaf-like form is recognisable at once. In the long merino and Saxon wools these projections or imbrications are acutely pointed. In the South Down they are also pointed, but less scutely. In the Leicester they are rounded off. These peculiarities, as the microscope shows them, are thus figured by Mr Yonatt:—

SAXONY WOOL. 1. A fibre of Saxon wool as a transparent object. 2. Do, opaque. 3. Do, combed, transparent. 4. Do, combed, opaque.

SOUTHDOWN WOOL. 1. A fibre of Southdown wool as a transparent object. 2. Do, as an opaque one. 3. Do, combed, transparent. 4. Do, combed, opaque.

LEICESTER WOOL. 1. A fibre of Leicester wool as a transparent object. 2. Do, as an opaque one. 3. Do, combed, transparent. 4. Do, combed, opaque.

Mr Yonatt appears to have gone too far in asserting that the felting properties of wool will vary absolutely with the number of these minute imbrications within a given space; but it is certain that they constitute one important element of those properties, that heavy or crumpled form which, from the earliest growth of each fibre, predisposes it to hook on, as it were, to its neighbour fibre, is another and essential element. Fine Saxon wool has 2720 such imbrications in an inch; the ordinary merino 2400; Australian from 1920 to 2400 (Macarthur's); South Down, 2000; Leicester, 1850. When the relative number of these imbrications is equal, that lock will be the softest and most elastic in which the imbrications are smallest and most uniform.

Of all European wools, the Saxon seems pre-eminent both for softness and fineness of fibre. But American merino is now (1860) exhibited in London of a diameter of $\backslash frac\{1\}\{128\}$, and Americo-Saxon of $\backslash frac\{1\}\{127\}$ of an inch.

(3.) Soundness of staple (a "staple," in this sense, is any lock that Soundness naturally sheds itself from the rest) consists in the equality both of staple, in length, lustre, and elasticity of the fibres composing it, as well as in its strength. If the staple be so held in both hands as that the third finger of the right hand may play firmly upon the fibres, its soundness will be indicated by a firm and sharp resonance, as well as by resistance to the sudden and repeated strain when the hands are forcibly jerked asunder.

(4.) The colour of the fleece has, from old, been a point of Colour. prime importance.

Whatever may be the fabric, pure whiteness in the wool is the Cleanness.

¹ Catalogue of the Collection of Animal Products at South Kensington (860), p. 5.

Sources of essential condition of a rich or brilliant dye. Hence it is that the Present old Scottish black-faced breed is gradually dwindling away.

Supply. (5.) The cleanness of the fleece, too, is important, not only for its influence on weight and the consequent fair adjustment of price between buyer and seller, but on account of that fermentation of the yolk or grease which results from imperfect washing, and by which the very substance that enriches the growing wool is made to deteriorate the shorn fleece. The clipping off of all dirty locks overlooked by the sheep-washers; the neat rolling of the fleeces, and their assortment in layers of like quality, are all points which claim the grower's attention, and are sure to repay his care.

(6.) All the qualities which commend wool to the clothier are also recommendations to the combber, the felting property only excepted. Length of staple is desirable for the comb only. For many purposes, combing wool should be at least four inches long, but wool of two inches can be combed by modern machinery; but always the shorter the staple, the more important becomes its soundness.

Weight of fleeces. In weight of fleece the ordinary short-wooled sheep of Great Britain range from 12 lb. to 34 lb.; and the ordinary long-wooled breeds from 3 lb. to 10 lb. The ordinary flocks of Saxony produce from 2 lb. to 2½ lb. of fine wool, and the improved flocks from 2½ lb. to 4 lb. The Negrette flocks in Mecklenburgh are said to average 4 lb., and many rams yield from 8 lb. to 10 lb. of washed wool. The merinos imported into the state of New York, and crossed with part-blooded Saxons, average from 4 lb. to 5 lb.

Example of the "sorts" and proportions of wool in a Southdown teag fleece. Fleeces of pure South Down may be seen at the South Kensington Museum, so stapled as to show the different varieties of wool, suitable for different textile purposes, which may be obtained from a single fleece. Thus, a teag fleece of 5 lb. and 8 oz. yields (1.) 1 oz. of "super" wool, used for flannels, blankets, hats, tweeds, and coarse cloth; (2.) 1 oz. of "Surrey;" and (3.) 2½ oz. of "grey" wool, both used for army, navy, prison, and workhouse clothes; (4.) 5½ oz. of "prime white" wool, made into cloth of superior kinds, and into the best blankets, flannels, tweeds, shawls, and coburgs; (5.) 2 oz. of "choice" and (6.) 1 lb. "picked teag," both used for tweeds, shawls, and blankets, and the former sometimes applied to the manufacture of cloths and flannels; (7.) 6½ oz. "super teag," for friage, hosiery, yarns, and coach-lace; and, finally, (8.) 3 lb. 8 oz. of "long" wool, suitable for yarns, fringes, shawls, and blankets. "Teag" or "bogget" wool, it may be added, is the wool of a sheep whose fleece has been allowed to grow to the second shearing season, instead of being shorn as lamb's wool.

The prediction of the distinguished French naturalist, M. de Quatrefages, that "Industry will obtain from the fleece of the alpaca an important branch of commerce," has been more than realized; for that prediction was coupled with the proviso,—"if we succeed in acclimatizing the animal." It is only in a very narrow sense, indeed, that Europeans can be said to have acclimatized the alpaca, since, of the many attempts to do so, only one has been attended with even slight success, and its ultimate establishment is very doubtful. But an important commerce in alpaca wool has existed for several years, and is yearly increasing.

The alpaca is a species of llama, a genus allied to the camel and the dromedary, and comprising four species, namely L. guanaco, L. glauca, L. vicugna, and L. pacos, or alpaca. It is only in the wool of the latter that extreme fineness is combined with length of staple. The staple of alpaca wool ranges usually from 6 to 12 inches in length. If the animal be left unshorn, the wool will attain an extraordinary length, without becoming coarse. Samples have been exhibited in London of 42 inches.

The wool produced by a cross of the alpaca with the vicugna is very soft and downy, but the product is small. That of the vicugna itself is short and fine, of a reddish brown colour, and in other respects somewhat like beaver wool. It is chiefly used in the hat-making and hosiery trades. The animal is wild, and grazes on the loftiest mountains of the Cordillera range, so that the supply of its wool depends on the successful enterprise of the Indian hunters. In the time of the Incas, the vicugna was domesticated, as the alpaca, only, is now. By Peruvian law, the exportation of the llama, alpaca, or vicugna, is prohibited. The weight of the alpaca fleece usually ranges between 10 lb. and 12 lb.

Mohair, or the wool of the Angora goat (Capra Angorana) is Mohair, the whitest wool known in commerce. It is very silky, hangs in long curls, and has an average length of staple of 5 or 6½ inches. The fleece weighs from 2 to 4 lb., and is free from under-down. Of an average fleece about three-fifths will be applicable to combing purposes, and the remainder to clothing.

The following table, drawn up by Mr Robert Milligan, of Bradford, on occasion of the Exhibition of 1861, exhibits the yield of 240 bales of alpaca, namely, 78 bales of black, 72 white, 58 brown, 15 grey, and 17 mixed; containing in the aggregate, and in gross, 19,057 lb.; as assorted for the various purposes of manufacture, according to colour, fineness, and other qualities:—

Wool of the shawl-goat. The wool of the famous Cashmere or shawl-goat is very soft, rich, and lustrous. This goat is reared on the dry table-land of Thibet, at heights which vary from 12,000 to 16,000 feet above the level of the sea. At such an elevation the animal is of course exposed to intense cold. The shawl-wool (posham-i-shahal) which grows close to the skin, under the usual hairy coat, would seem to be a special defensive provision of nature against the benumbing blasts which are characteristic of the Thibetan region. What have been the results of the various attempts to acclimatize the shawl-goat in Europe, we shall have to mention hereafter. The separation of the soft cottony down from the harsh hair or "hemp" of the outer coat, is a very difficult task. It has to be effected fibre by fibre. Hence the disappointment which has attended some celebrated endeavours to produce certain Cashmere fabrics in this country; hence, too, notwithstanding the cheapness of Indian labour, one element of the enormous cost of these fabrics when imported.

Shawls, however, are not the only textile product of this much-prized animal—

"With glossy hair of Thibet's shaggy goat,
Are light tiaras wove, that wreath the head,
And airy float behind."

Hair of the Rocky Mountain goat. Attention has been recently called to the capabilities of the fleece of the Rocky Mountain goat of North America. It combines whiteness and softness. The pile is of two kinds, one resembling lamb's wool, the other like the under-coat of the poodle dog. A fleece,

exhibited by Mr E. B. Roberts, may be seen at the South Kensington Museum.

SECT. II.—THE SOURCES OF PRESENT SUPPLY.

Of the growth of wool within the whole of the United Kingdom, (1.) Supply there have not been, at any period, authentic statistics. But the of British estimates, more or less plausible, have been numerous. In 1859, wool the Merchants of the Staple, addressing the Privy Council, rate the yearly production at about 91,000 packs. Two centuries later (1788), an estimate was laid before a select committee of the House of Commons, in which the annual shearing was rated at 600,000 packs. But there can now be no doubt that this estimate was greatly exaggerated. In 1800, Mr Luccock, basing his computation on a wider induction of evidence than had ever before been brought to bear on the question, estimated the then existing number of long-woolled sheep in England, and part of Wales, at 4,153,308; and the number of short-woolled at 14,854,209, making, Luccock's together, 19,007,607. He also estimated the annual slaughter of sheep (carried included), at 7,140,156, thus obtaining as the total 1800 (for number of sheep and lambs, 26,147,763. The long-woolled sheep England and Wales were estimated to yield 131,794 packs; and the short-woolled 193,475 packs—together, 325,269 packs, to which was added for skin wool and lamb's wool (both short and long), 58,705 packs, thus giving an aggregate total of 383,974 packs, or 92,153,760 lb. This estimate was revised in 1828 by Mr James Hubbard, an experienced wool-stapler of Leeds, for the information of the

sources of Lords' Committee on the wool trade. Mr Hubbard computed that in the first twenty-eight years of the century, the yield of short wool had decreased from 193,475 packs to 120,655 packs; and that the yield of long wool had, on the other hand, increased from 131,794 to 263,847 packs—making a total, for 1828, of 394,502 packs; to which must be added, as before, for skin and lamb's wool, 69,405, making an estimated aggregate production of 453,907 packs, or 108,937,680 lb.; and showing a net increase, from the beginning of the century, of 69,933 packs, or 16,783,920 lb.

No more recent account has been drawn up in so elaborate a manner as that of 1828. We are still mainly dependent on conjectural estimates, and most of those which have been recently put forward present great discrepancies.

As respects Scotland, the number of sheep was estimated in 1814, apparently on the best evidence then attainable, as amounting to 2,850,000. It is very certain that since that date the increase has been considerable. Mr McCulloch, in the last edition of his Dictionary of Commerce, published in 1859, estimated the number at 3,500,000. There are other computations, but none which appear to possess any special claims to confidence. Taking Mr McCulloch's datum, the average yield of Scottish wool would be about 72,000 packs or 17,496,000 lb.

The importance of public arrangements for the collection of agricultural statistics in a trustworthy form can scarcely, perhaps, be more conclusively indicated than by a quotation with respect to the wool of Ireland, from the work just referred to. No book of its kind, taking it as a whole, embodies more careful research, or has more justly attained a high reputation. Yet of the growth of wool in Ireland, Mr McCulloch (in his edition of 1859), writes thus: "According to Mr Wakefield, there is not a single flock of breeding sheep in the province of Ulster; and though there be considerable flocks in Roscommon and other counties, we believe that if we estimate the whole number of sheep in Ireland at 2,000,000, we shall be a good deal beyond the mark." When this statement was made, it was forgotten that for Ireland we have official returns of the highest authority, and of so recent a date as 1854. Those returns show that in 1854, the number of sheep in Ireland was 3,722,219; namely, in Ulster, 385,550; in Connaught, 1,013,318; in Munster, 1,015,131; and in Leinster, 1,308,220. Former returns of the same kind enable us to compare the figures of 1854 with those of 1841, and of some intermediate years. In 1841 the total number of sheep was returned at 2,108,189. In 1849 it had fallen to 1,777,111; but in 1853, it had risen to 3,142,656.¹ Were it not for the existence of the blue book which contains these official statistics, the well-merited reputation of Mr McCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce would have given currency to a statement which is in error to the extent of nearly 90 per cent.

It follows very obviously that Mr McCulloch's estimate of the total number of sheep in the United Kingdom is likely to have been put considerably too low. He states that number as "about 32,000,000." Mr Thomas Southey, who, as is well known, has bestowed great attention on the statistics of wool for a lengthened period, doubtless erred in the opposite direction, when (in 1850) he estimated the number of fleeces annually clipped at 40,000,000, in addition to 15,000,000 passing through the hands of the fellmongers. Taking the average weight of a fleece at 5 lb., the annual yield of domestic wool would, by the one estimate, amount only to 666,000 packs; by the other, to 1,145,000 packs.

Again, in an able lecture on the supply of wool, and more especially on the methods which might be adopted for increasing it, delivered before the Society of Arts in February 1860, Mr Leonard Wray estimates the annual aggregate number of fleeces in the United Kingdom at 50,000,000, but as he takes their average weight somewhat higher than Mr Southey had taken it, he reckons the yield of wool as amounting to 275,000,000 lb. (1,145,830 packs), and thus arrives at a like result, although by a different road. Mr Edward Baines, on the other hand, in his paper read before the statistical section of the British Association in 1858, estimates the yearly production of wool throughout the United Kingdom at only 175,000,000 lb.

Until better materials become available, we can but put these discordant computations—all of them, however, made by men of eminent ability—side by side, and leave the reader to make his own deductions from them. We may, perhaps, venture to hope that what it has been found practicable to do in Ireland, will not eventually—and after mature consideration of the best methods—present insuperable difficulties in other parts of the United Kingdom.

(2.) Foreign and colonial wool. The sources of the supply of foreign and colonial wools were, in 1859, respectively as follows. We give them in the order in which they stand in the tables of the Board of Trade:—

Wool (Sheep, Lamb, and Alpaca) imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1859.

The computed real value of the wool imported into the United Kingdom in 1859, according to a return presented to the House of Commons on 21st February 1860, was L.9,831,007. The imports of the first five months of the present year (1860), show a considerable aggregate increase as compared with those of the corresponding period of 1859, namely, 43,020,704 lb. in 1860, against 39,928,467 lb. in 1859. The greatest increase is in the imports from Australia, which for January, February, and March only, show 5,909,830 lb., against 2,638,443 lb. in the corresponding three months of 1859, and against 1,818,359 lb. in those of 1858. The imports from other British possessions also show an increase; those, namely, from South Africa, 2,752,323 lb. in the first three months of 1860, against 2,029,993 in the like period of 1859; and those from the East Indies 2,194,591 lb., against 1,179,193 lb. The imports of European wool, on the other hand, show a decrease, amounting only to 5,332,071 lb. in the first quarter of 1860, against 6,009,359 in the first quarter of 1859.

The aggregate exports of foreign and colonial wool (sheep, lamb, and alpaca) amounted in 1859 to 29,106,750 lb. against 26,701,542 lb. in 1858. Those of the first five months of 1860 show an aggregate of 9,624,316 lb., against 10,939,074 lb. in the corresponding period of 1859. The aggregate exports of British and Irish wool amounted in the same five months of 1860 to 3,148,123 lb., against 2,126,816 lb. in the corresponding period of 1859. Those of the whole year 1859 were 9,035,182 lb., against 13,455,984 lb. in 1858, and against 15,144,342 lb. in 1857. The average annual export of British and Irish wool may perhaps be fairly taken at 12,000,000 lb.

On these data, and taking somewhat of a medium estimate, between that of Mr Southey on the one hand, and that of Mr Baines on the other, of the annual yield of wool within the United Kingdom, the present supply of the chief raw material of our woollen and worsted manufactures may be stated approximately thus:—

Estimated total amount of wool for home consumption..... 340,000,000

In a paper of great research, and as remarkable for its Dr Forbes felicity of arrangement as for the copiousness and beauty of the illustrations by which it was accompanied, Dr Forbes Watson placed before the Society of Arts (May 9, 1860) an estimate of the total quantity of wool (in common with that of the other raw materials of our textile manufactures) in the United Kingdom. The sources of the present supply of wool are as follows:—

¹ Census of Ireland, 1851, part 2, xiii.; xxxiii.-xxxvii.; Returns of Agricultural Produce in Ireland in 1854, xvii., et seq.

History of the Wool Trade in the United Kingdom, exported by all the producing countries of the world. In this paper, the aggregate export of wool was stated at 364,000,000 lb. The country most largely exporting wool is Italy, with its 92,000,000 lb.; then follows Australia with its 53,000,000 lb.; and the southern countries of Europe, exclusive of Italy, with their 46,000,000 lb. Russia appears as the exporter of 30,000,000 lb. In putting 16,000,000 lb. to the credit of Great Britain, Dr Forbes Watson is clearly in excess of the truth, as we have shown by our preceding extracts from the returns of the Board of Trade. The deficiency of this excellent paper is the absence of references to the authority for such statements as cannot, from their nature, rest upon personal knowledge.

One of the most salient facts connected with the traffic in wool is the variety of the producing countries whence it comes to those which chiefly manufacture it. In this respect wool contrasts strikingly with cotton. Of the total amount of cotton exported to all parts of the world, eleven-fifteenths is produced in the United States of America, and nearly three-fifteenths more in the East Indies (the total export is stated by Dr Watson at 1,550,500,000 lb., of which 1,444,000,000 lb. comes from America and the East Indies collectively), whereas of wool, marvellous as have been the recent strides in its production of our own colonial possessions, their aggregate export is still less than one-fourth of the whole. Probably, almost all countries possess advantages for the production, with commercial profit, of wool of one sort or other. But it seems indisputable that for the production of many sorts eminently adapted to the manufactures in which we have won distinction, the capabilities of the British colonies have been, as yet, very imperfectly developed.

Another salient characteristic of the import wool-trade is the large per centage of increase which it shows during the last forty years. The import of hemp in 1859 as compared with that of 1821, shows an increase of 158 per cent.; that of flax, 274 per cent.; that of silk, 376 per cent.; that of cotton, 825 per cent.; but that of wool 1261 per cent. How this trade has developed itself from its early beginnings, and by what successive steps the remarkable changes in our sources of supply have been effected, will be seen in the following section of this article.

SECT. III.—NOTICES OF THE HISTORY OF THE WOOL TRADE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

The records of our early Henries and Edwards abound with such entries as "Arestacio Lanarum," "Prohibitio Lanarum extra regnum," and the like. As the searcher unwinds membrane after membrane of the long rolls, and meets repeatedly with the same phrases, he begins, perhaps, to think that in the days of the Plantagenets, English wool must have been jealously restricted to English backs. On closer examination, however, he soon perceives that these stern-looking prohibitions were intended rather to extract as much money as possible from the merchant's pocket, than to protect native industry. Every interdict is followed by licenses granted either for valuable considerations, or by way of grace to special favourites, to whom such grants stood in lieu of gifts, and who, doubtless, knew well how to turn them to good account. The king, who had his "customers" at all the ports, no more wished to prevent the egress of the wool-merchant, than the baron whose men-at-arms watched the highways wished to prevent the passage of travellers with well-stored purses.

Both the prohibitions and the licenses, however, prove the high estimation in which English wool was held. An enactment of Henry II., quoted by Stow, to the effect that "if any cloth were found to be made of Spanish wool mixed with English wool, the Mayor of London should see it burnt," points in the same direction; but we have failed to find any record which might explain the precise purpose of the order, and the statute-book contains no notice of it.

The early history of the trade is in fact a history of nascent mercantile enterprise, in almost perpetual strife with the violence and the necessities of kings and barons; winning, indeed, step after step, but paying dearly at every step for its footing. Already, in the thirteenth century, a considerable wool-traffic had grown up both with Italy and with the Low Countries; but it was continually impeded by disputes and complaints arising out of some levy of black mail, either just as the wool was about to be shipped, or whilst it was on its way from the landing-port to the place of manufacture. In the reign of Henry III., for example, certain merchants of Lucca complain to the king (in a letter without date) that their wool had been seized at Dover "on account of tenths granted for the Holy Land," and they appeal to the king's feelings by reminding him of a promised loan which it will be impossible for them to raise, unless the wool be released.¹ In 1322, Adam Huntsman tells the Parliament a sad story of the doings of the sire John, lord of Flanders, who seized his wools when on the road to St Omers, took them into his castle, and there "had his will of them."² A few years earlier, we find Countess Margaret of Flanders writing to the King of England (Henry III.) to reproach him with the seizure, at Yarmouth, of twelve sacks of wool, belonging to a poor subject of hers, one Godfrey of Dixmund. The countess tells him that many like enormities have compelled her to make reprisals on the English merchants in Flanders, whose goods, land and howsoever, she promises to release immediately that restitution shall Flanders have been made in England. But ten years elapse, and these quarrels are still unsettled. Count Guy, son of Margaret, entreats Edward I. to hear in person the matters in dispute between the merchant. The king remits the affair to the decision of Edmund, earl of Cornwall. Eventually, after long delays, the fault is laid upon the Flemings. The earl and seven knights are imprisoned at Montreuil-sur-Mer, and are released only on a solemn covenant that they will return to their imprisonment if satisfaction be not made within the time prescribed.³ One of the results of this long quarrel seems to have been to throw the export trade very much into the hands of the Italians. In 1276, certain merchants of Florence were licensed to carry to Flanders 1068 sacks of wool, paying a customs duty of 10s. the sack; a tax heavier, by a third, than that paid by denizens of the realm.⁴ Twenty years afterwards, we find Edward I. making a grant to his son-in-law, John, Duke of Brabant, of £4000, out of the customs on wools.

Levies of black mail on the wool merchants. Under circumstances like these, one of the most obvious expedients of the merchants was to band themselves together for mutual incorporation. The "Brotherhood of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury" is said to have obtained privileges in Brabant as early as 1248, and may be regarded as the germ of the great society of the Merchant Adventurers of England, where history, however, relates, in the main, to woollen fabrics, rather than to the raw material. The merchants of the German Hansa in London (Gildhalla Teu-German tonicornum), better known in history, as in popular speech, by the name of the "Merchants of the Steelyard," and sometimes by that of the "Easterlings," are older still. In 1220, King John granted to them (as "Merchants of Cologne") their first hall, afterwards exchanged for that "steelyard" on the river-bank, which gave them their familiar designation. They were great exporters both of wool and cloth, and kept many of their peculiar privileges until the time of Elizabeth, although the motives and the equivalents of those privileges had long ceased to exist.

More important in regard to the direct trade in wool than either Merchants of these companies, but also of obscurer origin and of less well-defined limits, was the famous community known as the "Merchants of the Staple." The multitudinous enactments respecting this body seem on the surface conflicting. Under Henry III., certain owners of wool are prohibited from trading in it "because they had sold their wools for export to foreigners." Under Edward III., it was made a capital offence to sell wools for export to any but foreigners. No Englishman, Irishman, nor Welshman, could carry wool out of the kingdom, save under penalty of "life and limb." Again, the great "Ordinance of the Staple" (27 Edward III.) recites, that by holding abroad the staple of "those wools of England which are the sovereign merchandise and jewel of our realm, . . . the people of foreign lands are enriched . . . to the damage and impoverishment of the commonalty of our said realm." Yet many subsequent statutes provide for the establishment and confirmation of the staple of wools in foreign towns exclusively.

Two leading aims, however, will be found to pervade this legislation, confused as at first sight it may appear, namely, (1.) to encourage the largest possible resort of foreigners to the staple towns, whether within or without the realm, for the purchase of wool; and (2.) to confine the trade to those places where the king's officers had the control of it, and could take effective precautions against "the

¹ Royal and other Letters, MS., No. 1007, about 1260? ("Merchants of Lucca to Henry III.," Rolls House).

² Petitiones in Parlamento, 15 and 16 Edw. II., 151.

³ Royal and other Letters, Nos. 133-136, 1510, 1511, 1516, 2127 ("Margaret, Countess of Flanders, to Henry III.," &c., Rolls House).

⁴ Patent Roll of 3 Edw. I., m. 22 (Rolls House).

History of king being deceived in his customs." These were objects always kept in view. The bringing as much bullion as possible into England in exchange for wool was another prominent aim. Very often the king could receive the subsidies granted to him by parliament only in kind. His success in war depended on his successful enterprise as a wool-broker.

Thus, in 1341, 30,000 sacks of wool were granted by parliament. Of these, 2206 sacks were levied in Norfolk, 1816 in Kent, 1265 in Lincolnshire, 1048 in Yorkshire, and so on, in diminishing proportions, down to 335 sacks in Leicestershire, 262 sacks in Cornwall, and 111 in Rutlandshire. The king laid an embargo on all other exports of wool,—unless by his express license, on payment of 40s. a sack,—under penalty of treble the value, and "to be at the king's will for life and limb." Other like grants followed. In 1343, the prices of wool were fixed by statute: that of Norfolk at 1l. 6s. the sack; that of Lincoln at 1l. 4s. 4d.; that of Leicester at 1l. 8s.; that of Shropshire at 1l. 9s. 8d.; that of Cornwall at 1l. 2s. 4d. But, in the very next year, we find the Commons petitioning that the statutory tariff should be repealed, and "all men be free to make their bargains as they can."

Abstract of wool exports in the record or abstract, not now to be found in the Rolls House, but printed in 1623 by a writer of good authority, Edward Misselden, in his treatise entitled The Circle of Commerce. By this document it appears that the total exports of the year 1354 amounted in value, customs included, to 1l. 294,184, 17s. 2d. of which aggregate amount wool and wool fells together made up 1l. 277,606, 2s. 9d. The quantity of wool exported was 31,651 sacks, worth 1l. 6s. the sack. The number of fells was 364,335, worth 1l. 2s. for every 120; and the amount of customs duty on both was 1l. 81,624, 1s. 1d. The total amount of the imports of the same year was 1l. 38,970, 3s. 6d.

The gift of English sheep to King of Spain in the fourteenth century. Some writers on trade, and those amongst the best of them, have ridiculed as mere romance the old tradition that English sheep were the original stock of the famous merino flocks of Spain. Nevertheless, the old tradition is backed by good evidence. Our own search, indeed, at the Rolls House² for contemporary record of the gift has not been successful, but the testimony of Spanish writers is of itself sufficient to establish the fact. For our present purpose, one citation must stand in place of many which are at hand. In a somewhat angry discussion between two Spanish courtiers which occurred in 1437, the taunt, "You are only the descendant of a Magistrate of Shepherds," was answered, in Castilian style, with the assertion that the derided office was one of high dignity, which King Alfonso had established "when the English sheep first came over" (quando se traxeron en primera vez . . . las pecoras de Inglaterra).³ Davila assigns 1394 as the date of the gift, and describes it as forming part of the dowry of Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt; but it is probable that this was the second gift of its kind.

The migration of the merino flocks. How far the improvement of the merino fleece in Spain may have been due to the system of migration is a curious inquiry, which cannot here be entered upon. The reader may find a concise account of that system in the chapter "Sobre el ganado Merino," in Bowles' Introducción a la Historia Natural de España.⁴

The English staple for wool underwent many removals, but its longest abode was at Calais. The statute of 27 Henry VI. recites, that the customs there had greatly decreased "by reason of licenses granted by letters patent, and by misuse thereof, . . . so that the said customs pass not yearly 1l. 12,000, which is but little in comparison to that they have been heretofore," and enacts that "all licenses thereafter granted shall be void, and the grantees be out of the king's protection; and that any of the king's subjects may seize wools exported elsewhere than to Calais, and may keep them to his own use." But the prohibition is followed by a string of exceptions which may possibly remind the reader of the famous account of the freedom of the press as enjoyed in the days of Figaro. All such licenses are to be excepted from the operation of this statute, as shall have been granted either to the queen, or to the Duke of Suffolk, or to the community of St John of Bridlington, or to Thomas Walsingham, or to Thomas Brown, or to John Pennycock; and also "all such as shall have been granted for the export of wools by way of the Straits of Morocco."

and also "all such as shall have been granted for the export of wools by way of the Straits of Morocco."

Some of the most important circumstances which controlled the trade in wool from this period onwards will be noticed in the following article on the history of our WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES. As those manufactures grew, the cry for prohibiting the export of their raw material became more clamorous. Complaints of the enhancement of prices meet the eye in the memorials addressed to the Privy Council, in the petitions sent up to Parliament, and in the statute book itself. The increasing markets for wool had favoured the aggregation of farms, the inclosure of commons, and the conversion of arable land into pasture. Some landowners possessed 20,000, or even 24,000 sheep. It is alleged in the preamble to the statute of 25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, entitled, An act against ex-Act concerning Furs and Sheep, that "a good sheep for victual cessive that was accustomed to be sold for 2s. 4d., or 3s. at most, is now sheep husd for 6s., or 4s. at least; and a stone of clothing wool, that in bandry. some shires of this realm was accustomed to be sold for 1s. 6d. or 1s. 10d., is now sold for 4s., or 3s. 4d. at the least." The statute proceeds to enact that no farmer shall occupy more than two farms, and that none shall keep above 2000 sheep. But, the statute notwithstanding, the complaints on this score soon became louder and more numerous than ever.

The staplers, on their part, already looked with an evil eye on the rapid increase of cloth-making at home. Their notion of the proper uses of wool was, that it should be carried over sea. At the accession of Elizabeth, they addressed a memorial to the council beseeching attention to the fact that 24,000 sacks of good wool, which were yearly sent over to the Low Countries in the shape of white cloth, paying only to her Majesty in customs and subsidy 1l. 5833, 6s. 8d., would, if exported as wool, yield to her Majesty 1l. 48,000; and they entreated that various regulations, which they specify in detail, should be enacted for the purpose of checking the excessive manufacture of cloth and encouraging the export of wool.⁵ Statements to this purpose were reiterated again and again. One of the advocates presses his argument by enforcing on the council that "the commodities of any place are to be judged to be sent of God . . . to nourish amity and friendship between the people of sundry regions by trafique, and repair of those of one to the other; . . . not to keep the said commodities from helping of those nations that have need of them, no more than we would have the commodities of other countries whereof we have need kept from us."⁶ But he fails to establish any connection between this very sound proposition and that which calls on the council to check cloth-making at home, that we may have the more wool to send abroad.

As late as 1577, the staplers were still insisting on the losses Renewed they had sustained by the fall of Calais, and the transfer of the complaints staple to Hamburg, where, say they, "the utterance is so indirect against that some merchants returned their wool into England when it had licenses to been at Hamburg five years."⁷ But their capital grievance was export the increase of licenses to court favourites and to official men for wool. the export of wool. In handling so delicate a subject, the complainants of course found it necessary to attack the agents rather than the principals. Thus, in or about 1580, one Martin de la Fallia is charged with having bought more than 20,000 tods of wool, worth 23s. 4d. the tod. "The best," says the informer, "he hath shipped on Mr Secretary's license (i.e., Walsingham's), and doth sell the rest in England at dear prices." These licenses were sought, it will be perceived, by Elizabeth's statesmen, as well as by her courtiers. Burleigh had one, as well as Leicester; and some curious calculations of the profits the great minister derived from it, in his own handwriting, may be seen at the State Paper Office.

All these facts tend to show that the export of wool continued to be large, notwithstanding a very rapid increase in the home consumption (see WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURES), but there are not sufficient materials for any satisfactory estimate of its amount.

At this period the supremacy, for clothing purposes, of the wool

¹ Misselden, The Circle of Commerce, 119, 120.

² Too much praise cannot be accorded to Sir John Romilly for the liberal provision he has made with respect to the literary study of the public records. But there is still a singular contrast between the abounding facilities and the prevalent courtesy which await the literary inquirer both at the State Paper Office and at the Privy Council Office (the latter an office of business to which access is and must be a special favour), and the comparatively narrow restrictions he encounters at the Rolls House General Repository. Were the practice at the Rolls House but assimilated to that of the Paper Office, the student would have nothing to desire.

³ Gomez de Cíbdareal, Centos Epistolarios, 126. This curious volume is before us, but we owe our knowledge of it to a passage in Southey's well-named Omniana.

⁴ Papers relating to the Merchants of the Staple, MS., Eliz., Domestic, vol. xv. § 54 (State Paper Office).

⁵ John Johnson, Discourse for the Reparing of the Decayed State of the Merchants of the Staple, 22d July 1557, MS., Eliz., Domestic, vol. xlv. § 58 (State Paper Office).

⁶ A most Humble Representation how the Staple is decayed, MS., ibid. § 29 (State Paper Office).

History of Herefordshire was already well established. Early in the next the Wool reign Drayton sang its praises in his sonorous verse. In Poly-Trade in oëdon, he tells

"Of Lemster, for her wool whose staple doth excel,
And seems to overmatch the golden Phrygian fell.
Had this, our Colchos, been unto the ancients known,
When honour was herself, and in her glory shone,
He then, that did command the chivalry of Greece,
Had only to our side adventur'd for this fleece.
Where lives the man so dull, on Britain's farthest shore,
To whom did never sound the fame of Lemster ore,
That with the silkworm's web for fineness doth compare?"

But the beauty of the Leominster wool scarcely roused Drayton's enthusiasm more than did the abundance of the wool yielded by the flocks of the Cotswolds—

"T' whom Sarum's plain gives place, though famous for her flocks,
Yet hardly doth she tithe our Cotswold's wealthy locks;
Though Lemster him excels for fineness of her ore,
Yet quite he puts her down for his abundant store."

The testimony of economists and of historians fully bears out the encomium of the poet. Even a Portuguese contemporary of Drayton, the chronicler Bernardo de Brito, praises the Lusitanian wools, by saying that "they might vie with those English wools, which have been likened to hills of snow" (tao fmas inmas que podem competir com as de Inglaterra, que os autores dizem parecer montes de neve).¹ "The wool of Herefordshire, of Romney Marsh, of Sussex, and of the Isle of Wight," says a later English writer, "is, for fineness and softness, but a trifle, if at all, inferior to the Spanish wool; but is incomparably more useful than that because of the length of the staple, being from an inch and a half to four inches long."² For combing purposes, the palm is given to the wools of Leicester, Huntingdon, Lincoln, and Northampton. When he proceeds to assert that no wool in Europe equals ours in goodness, either for combing or for clothing, the writer goes too far. He speaks as one familiar with foreign wools as well as with English, but probably his patriotism was too much for his judgment.

Under the Stuarts, the complaints about the smuggling of wool are incessant, but the prices show little variation. It has been noticed that in 1650 the average price of English wool was 23s. 4d. From 1600 to 1660 the lowest price mentioned in the various documents before us is 24s. In 1647 the current price was 35s., and in that year a new prohibitory law was made by the Lords and Commons in parliament. In 1651 the medium price of ordinary clothing wool appears to have been 28s. the tod. In the closing years of the Commonwealth there was a large and increasing illicit export to Holland.

One of the first enactments of the Restoration parliament was the renewal of the prohibition, with increased penalties. The reasons assigned are the avoiding of the losses that daily happen "by the secret and subtle exportation," and "to the intent that the full use and benefit of the principal native commodities of the same kingdoms (of England and Ireland) and dominion (of Wales) may come . . . amongst the subjects . . . of the same, and not amongst the subjects . . . of the realm of Scotland, or of any foreign realms or states." In 1663 (12 Cha. II. c. 32) the penalties were still further increased to those of felony, which continued to be law until the reign of William III. The prohibition of export, under penalties of less severity, continued to be law until 1825. But the main result of this legislation was to create an enormous smuggling trade, attended by all the incidents of loss, vice, and crime, which are the natural product of such a trade. The growers suffered severely by the decline of prices. A writer of credit, who discussed this subject in 1677, states that in almost every year since the prohibition, "wool has abated of its price, and now (1677) there are divers persons who have four, and some five years' wool upon their hands, not being able to get above 4d. or 5d. per lb." In the reign of Anne we find it quoted at prices ranging from 6d. to 8d. per lb. In 1718 it had risen to 9d. In 1738 it had fallen to a fraction below 6d. per lb. The fall continued until it reached a fraction above 4d.; but in 1752 it had recovered to 7d. New enactments against smugglers were made in quick succession, but the smugglers continued to thrive.

Another of the old points of complaint and controversy came now to be revived. The "false winding" of wools, and the abuse of pitch and tar marks, were offences widely charged upon the wool-growers by the manufacturers. After much excitement and a long parliamentary inquiry, stringent regulations were made for the suppression of these practices; but the ill-feeling which had thus arisen between the two interests had scarcely subsided, when the advocacy by some of the landowners of a wiser policy in respect

to the exportation of wool reproduced it in an aggravated form. History. In 1781, a meeting of the landed men and farmers of Lincolnshire the Wool suggested, in very cautious and temperate language, that it might Trade is possibly be right to seek "permission under the regulations of a the Uain temporary law, to export to the foreign market that surplus of our Kingdom wool which is now unsold and unsaleable at the home market." But the manufacturers were instantly in arms. The idea of the smallest approximation towards a free trade in wool was intolerable to them. One of the leading champions of the mercantile interest characterised the attempt "as blind, rash, and ruinous," and suggested that parliament ought to set "a mark of censure on such petitioners who, for a local, temporary, perhaps imaginary relief to themselves, would sacrifice to the enemy, at the hottest crisis of the war, the chief of those few resources yet remaining to this country, nothing less than the whole woollen manufacture, that ancient, that fundamental support of Great Britain."³ The proposed inroad on the protective system was vigorously supported by the arguments of Sir John Dalrymple, of Governor Pownall, and of Dean Tucker, as it had been many years before by those of the able author of the Memoirs of Wool, Mr. John Smith. Those arguments were in substance unanswered and unanswerable; but they made no way with parliament, in face of the strenuous opposition of the manufacturers of Yorkshire.

Until the year 1802, the importation of foreign wool into Great Britain was absolutely free. During the whole of the eighteenth century, the inducements to the sheep-farmer to look for his best foreign market to the butcher rather than to the stapler had been on the wool increase. The main source of foreign supply was Spain. From 1791 to 1799 inclusive, the total import of foreign wool was 34,011,369 lb., of which no less than 33,190,595 lb. was Spanish. The details show that the use of Spanish wool was increasing, and that of all other foreign sorts diminishing. They are as follows:—

Foreign Wool imported from 1791 to 1799.

This increasing degree of dependence of our manufacturers on Spanish wool for the production of some of their finest fabrics, produce trivial as it now appears, gave an additional spur to the efforts of merino breeders at home to improve their flocks. To put a merino fleece wool in upon South Down mutton, became for a time, a leading object of England's agricultural ambition. Only a few years ago, any notice of the history of wool must have included some account of the many experiments which were made in this direction, and of the measure of success which attended them. They occupied a large space in the public eye for a long period. The results have been considerable, although they have taken a different direction from that of the original aim. It has been found impossible to combine the finest wool with the finest mutton. Either the meat or the fleece must become a secondary object. But the energetic efforts then made, in which Lords Western, Leicester, and Somerville eminently distinguished themselves, have unquestionably resulted in the relative improvement, for certain purposes, of both. In the meantime, other and powerful influences have been unremittingly at work to lessen the comparative importance of the supplies both of home-grown and of foreign wool, and to enhance that of the supply of the wool grown in our colonies, where meat is redundant, and where there are great facilities for improving the fleece and increasing the yield.

All that vicious legislation could do to impede the natural tendencies of things, beneficent to all classes if allowed fair play, was it legislated assiduously. The manufacturers had insisted that English wool-growers should not be allowed to profit by the foreign demand for their produce. The English wool-growers insisted, in their turn, that the manufacturers should not be allowed to profit by the

¹ Monarchia Lusitanica, l. 93.

² R. Glover ("Leonidas" Glover), Letter to The London Courant, 17th Oct. 1781.

³ Excidium Angliae (1727).

istory of foreign supply of their raw material, unless they submitted to a heavy import. Beginning in 1802 with a duty of 5s. 3d. the cwt. trade in the process went on until in 1819 the duty amounted to 5s. the United cwt., being nearly 50 per cent on the price of a considerable proportion of the wool imported.

Meanwhile, that remarkable change in the character of the bulk of British wool which has made it more fitted for combing purposes, but less fitted for cloth-making, continued to develop itself. The farmer, by dint of turnips, had succeeded in increasing both weight of carcass and weight of fleece, but quantity had been gained at the cost of quality, as far as respects the demands of the clothier. When the Lords' Committee of 1828 came to inquire into the condition of the wool-trade, it was stated in evidence before them that 420 lb. of Norfolk wool grown in 1790, yielded 200 lb. of "prime," while the same quantity grown in 1828 yielded only 14 lb. of "prime." And this testimony was fully borne out by other testimony of like character. From other causes, Spanish wool also had deteriorated. But the Spanish merinos which had been introduced into Saxony (in 1765, and again in 1778), and managed there with great care and skill, eventually produced finer wool than had ever been produced in Spain itself.

In the year 1800, the import of wool from Spain amounted, in the aggregate, to 6,062,824 lb. In 1815 it had increased only to 6,929,579 lb. The imports of wool from Germany, on the other hand, which in 1800 were but 412,394 lb. had increased in 1815 to 3,137,438 lb. Ten years later (1825) the German wool imported was 28,799,601 lb.; the Spanish, 8,206,427 lb.

This great change in the sources of our foreign supply becomes comparatively insignificant when placed beside that which has since arisen out of the enterprise and foresight of Captain John Macarthur, a British officer whom the chances of a military life led to become a settler in New South Wales, and to whose instrumentality a large portion of the commercial prosperity of Australia may fairly be ascribed. By this gentleman, three merino rams and five ewes were introduced into New South Wales in 1797. He continued to import and to breed with great judgment, until he became the owner of very large and choice flocks. The first shipment of colonial wool to the mother country was made in 1807, and amounted to 245 lb. In 1825, the shipment from New South Wales amounted to 411,600 lb.; in 1829, to 1,005,333 lb.; in 1835, to 3,778,191 lb.; in 1840, to 6,215,329 lb.;—from New South Wales alone; and to 9,721,243 lb. from the Australian colonies collectively; in 1845, the collective export had increased to 24,177,317 lb.; in 1850, to 30,018,221 lb.; in 1855, to 49,142,306 lb.; and in 1859, to 53,700,542 lb.

The duty of 6d. per lb. on all wool imported continued until December 1824. It did not convert the manufacturers to the doctrine of free trade. Intent as they were on the repeal of that most oppressive duty, they were as anxious as ever to maintain the prohibition of export. Mr Huskisson had to play off the one desire against the other, and eventually he succeeded both in abolishing the prohibition, and in reducing the duty from 6d. to 1d., per lb. on foreign wool, worth 1s. and upwards; and to a ¼d. per lb. on

wool of less value. Colonial wool was admitted free. All these History of changes took effect in 1825. The penny duty continued to be in the Wool Trade in the United Kingdom. force until the 6th June 1844.

Under the comparatively low duty of 1818, the aggregate import of foreign wool had been 24,720,139 lb. Under the duty of 1819, it sank to 6,094,999 lb. The average price of South Down wool in 1818 was 2s. 6d. the lb. Quantities of foreign wool in 1818 was 2s. 6d. the lb. and that of Kentish long wool, 1s. 7d. In 1819, the former was 1s. 7d., and the latter 1s. 3d. the lb. In 1823, and the import of foreign wool amounted to 18,863,886 lb. prices of South Down was 1s. 3¼d., and Kentish long, 1s. the lb. From 1825 to 1829 inclusive, the yearly import of foreign wool averaged 27,006,575 lb., and that of colonial wool, 1,128,248 lb. During the same period the average price of South Down wool was 10d. the lb., and that of Kentish long wool 11¼d. In the last complete year of the existence of the penny duty (1843), the amount of foreign wool imported was 26,633,915 lb. In the first complete Growth of year of free import (1845), it was 44,970,793; the corresponding importations of colonial wool having been 21,151,148 lb. and 31,843,762 lb. In 1843, the price of South Down wool was 11¼d., and that of Kentish long 11d.; in 1845, those prices were, respectively, 1s. 4d. and 1s. 3d.

Second, only, in importance to the growth of the Australian supply has been that of our African colonies. In 1820, we received from this source only 13,869 lb. In 1845, we received 3,512,924 lb.; in 1850, 5,709,529 lb.; in 1855, 11,075,965 lb.; and in 1859, 14,269,343 lb. India began to send us wool, as a curiosity, in 1810, but no noticeable import occurred until 1820, when 8056 lb. were received. In 1833, the quantity was but 3721 lb. In 1840, it amounted to 2,441,370 lb.; in 1850, to 3,473,252 lb.; and, in 1859, to 14,361,403 lb.

It has been shown that, in the last year of the preceding century, our whole import of wool was but 4,935,839 lb. In 1810, it amounted to 10,914,137 lb.; in 1820, it was but 9,789,020 lb. In 1830, it had increased to 32,313,059 lb.; in 1840, to 49,427,284 lb.; in 1850, to 74,326,778 lb.; and in 1859, to 133,284,634 lb.

The details, for the last twenty years, are exhibited in the following table. We have altered the arrangement adopted in the various tables issued by the Board of Trade, in order to bring out the total imports from the colonies, as compared with those from foreign countries:—

The exports of foreign and colonial wool from the United Kingdom, during the same period, were as follows:—
Table showing the Export of Foreign and Colonial Wool from the United Kingdom, from 1841 to 1859 inclusive.

If the figures of the table of imports for the year 1859 be compared with those of 1843, it will be seen that whereas, in the last named year, the quantity of wool imported from foreign countries amounted to 57 per cent. of the total import, that proportion had been reduced in 1859 to 38 per cent. of the total import; the colonial import being of course proportionately increased from 43 per cent. to 62 per cent. of the whole. Or, to put it from another point of view, while the foreign import has increased during the last twenty years by 37 per cent., the colonial import has increased by nearly 640 per cent. Within the same period, the total import itself had been increased by upwards of 170 per cent.; and the total export (of foreign and colonial wool) by nearly 1160 per cent.

It will also be perceived, that the exceptional circumstances which, during the last few years, have characterized the history of the British possessions, both in Australia and in India, have had a very marked effect on the supply of wool from thence. The gold discoveries in Australia led to immense losses of sheep. To the ordinary enemies of the Australian wool-grower—drought, disease, and dingoes (or native dogs)—were added the lack of shepherds, and the inordinate increase of the demand for mutton. But these are essentially drawbacks of a temporary character. In like manner, the rebellion in India and its contingent results, have momentarily checked the supply of Indian wool, which was less by 5,000,000 lb. in 1859 than it had been in 1857. Inferior as this wool is in qua-

lity, it is useful for many purposes, and, under an improved system of government, its production will doubtless be largely increased, and its quality ameliorated. The rapid increase of the shipments of wool from the Cape colony is pre-eminently of good omen. A province which little more than twenty years ago produced but 70,000 lb. of wool, now produces 16,000,000 lb. By the liberal introduction of merinos, and by their judicious treatment in the colony, the old Barbary breed, almost as wild in appearance as the antelope, has been converted into a fine wool-bearing sheep. The Angora goat, too, has been recently introduced with good promise of success.

The following tables show (1.) the current prices of the principal sorts of English and foreign wool, in July 1859 and July 1860 respectively; and (2.) the current prices of colonial wool at the same periods:—

¹ For the second of these tables we are indebted to the courtesy of Messrs Thos. Southey and Son, the eminent colonial wool-brokers.