The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-09-19

against the enticement of slaves to run away
from their masters in the District Of Columbia,
was debated, and then postponed. The greater
part of the day was occupied in the considera-
ton of executive business.
The House Of Representatives. passed-yeas
1913, nays 36-the bill making an appropriation
for the payment of the third instament due to
Mexico under the treaty of Guadalupe ilidalgo.
The Era OF Harmony and good Feeling.
The South and Southwest have been provided
fo- by the admission of California and the set
Element of the agtating slavery question. The
West and Northwest are being provided for by
the grant of a vast body of land, to enable them
to make road from the lakes TO the gulf. The
men who have served their country in the sew
eral wars in which we have been engaged are
likely, as we hear, TO be provided for The
friends of the civilization of Africa are likely
to be provided for. The advocates of the ship
ping interest have been provided for. All in
terests, SO far as we can see, have been, or are
likely to be, provided for, except one, and that
| is THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDING
ers and planters.
|
present their prospects are far from satisfactory.
| What is to become of them, unless Congress
should adopt some course tending to enable them
to make market on the land for its products,
we are at a loss to conceive. The market for
food afforded by prosperous coal-miners, IRON
workers, and cotton and woollen operatives, is
rapidly passing away. The market of Europe
| has HISan rod 10
now preparing to overwhelm western Europe
with her immense surplus of corn. Our people
are going to California, there to eat the wheat
Of Chill and Canada thunders at our doors,
claiming the free admission of her grain. The
market for the farmer is diminishing daily,
while our whole Legislation is driving our popu-
lation into the cultivation of the land ceasing
to be customers to the farmer, and becoming
rivals. The passage Of the Illinois Railroad bill
must tend to increase the number of producers of
food and such must be the effect of the Bounty
Land bill; and thus the supply of food must CON
tlnue TO increase as the demand for it increases,
to the manifest injury of the whole Of the great
agricultural interests of the Union, whether
farmers or planters. If the man of the East
|
If the man of the middle States cannot sell coal
or iron, he cannot buy food or cotton, but he can
and must raise food and wool with which to
feed and cothe himself
The remedy for this difficulty, and the,way
to enable the farmers and planters TO rejoice
in the great works of the session, by which
harmony is TO be restored throughout the vast
| Of tba nj
by whose aid the number of consumers of food
may be enabled to increase in fair proportion to
the increase of producers of food Every one
who works in a coal mine-and every one
that digs the ore, makes the iron, spins the cot
ton, OF weaves the CLOTHS a consumer TO the
extent of his production. fhe produces much
coal, or iron, or cloth, he is consumer of much
food and cotton. If he produces little, he con-
sumes little. Let our Western and Southern
friends then unite in the effort to enable them
to become large producers of cloth and iron,
that they may become large consumers of food
and clothing.
Every man who comes here from abroad
consumes food for at least year before he can
be producer of food, even for the supply Of
!
can be competitor with the farmer in the general
market. In the few years of the tariffof 1912,
the number of immigrants trebled itself, and
should now reach sic hundred thousand, whereas
! II is likely little to exceed ttro hundred thou
sand. The 900 would have made a mar
ket for sixty millions of the products of the
earth, whereas the diminished number that now
/ arrt,r L..
millions; and this at the same moment when
we are increasing the number of producers, OF
are decreasing the number and the power of
consumers.
! Illinois abounds in ore and fuel, and so does
a large portion of the whole line Of road from
the lakes to the gulf They abound in food,
and in the materials of clothing, for the supply
Of those who would convert the fuel and the
ore into iron. Europe abounds in men who
would gladly come and eat the food and wear
the cloth while making the iron, yet we now
take our iron from men who eat none Of our
food, and who are stimulating the world into
rivalship with our planters for the production of
cotton. Every man who comes here becomes
a large consumer Of food, of cotton, and Of wool;
while all who stay at home remain small con-
sumers Of all, and most Of them never consume
pound of any thing produced in the Union,
whether food or cotton, or wool
IL is time that our Western and Northwestern
friends should open their eyes to the fact that it
is the great agricultural interest that needs pro-
lection, and that 50 far are the measures hither-
~ adopted during the session from promoting
their interests, that they must inevitably suffer
loss from them, unless to what has now been
done there be added an efficient measure of pro-
lection to themselves in their efforts to draw
consumers to their sides. II is time that they
should open their eyes to the fact, that the coal
miner and the furnace-man can turn their efforts
TO the production of food, thus increasing the
supply and diminishing the demand. and that
they must do so unless their neghbors who now
produce food will take their fuel and their iron
in exchange. Whatever tends to increase the