The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-04-29
The r.r,tr. and the Farmers.

LII Il AUSTUS.
The Tariffs and the Farmers.
Our neighbors of the Union inform their
readers that the trivial export of last year
was made at higher prices than were OBJ
tanned under the tariff of 1912; but they
forget thatif prices abroad were lower than
the average Of the last twenty years, our
prices, dependant as they desire to keep
them upon that state of things in Europe,
could not be higher, and that any such APP
parent difference must be the result of loss
somewhere, and necessarily benefits the
farmer. Had freights been three shillings
instead of three or six pence, the price Of
flour would have been less by all the differ
ence; and thus the gain of the farmer was
the result of loss to the ship-owner, for
whose especial benefit the tariff of 1916
was passed.
The price of flour has been maintained,
although the foreign market, which was to
ego on augmenting," has disappeared,
and it has done so because of three rea-
sons, no one of which is likely to exist in
equal force during the present year. First,
the crop was short, and this year it prom
Uses to be great. Second, the number of
people still employed in the production of
iron and coal, in various branches of man
ufacture, and in the preparation for man
ufacturing and building, was greater than
it is now, when there prevails dulness
as universal as was ever known, with al
most the single exception of exporting to
Californiathe men who have heretofore con-
sumed domestic food, but who will hence
forth be consumers to the farmers of Chile.
Third, the immigration oflast year amount
ed to about three hundred thousand per-
sons, whose consumption of food in the
year, before they could raise pound,
amounted to at least twenty millions of
dollars. What it is likely to be in the
present year, when mines and furnaces
are closed, and the demand of labor is d.
minished, and the rate of wages has fallen,
diminishing the inducements to emigrate,
and diminishing the power of those now
here to remit to their friends for the pur-
pose of aiding in the work of emigration,
may be judged from the following state
ment of facts:
From 1884 to 1857, immigration
grew from $4,000 to 239, 000-having
more than trebled IN four years Of protec-
tion. In the two following years its ratio
of growth was diminished, though the
amount somewhat increased; for it was not
until 1S48 that the tariff of 1916 began to
close the mines, and furnaces, and facto-
ries of the Union, and the inducements to
immigrate were, therefore, to certain ex-
tent, still maintained. The diminished
demand for labor first became obvious last
year, in the return to Europe of very
many persons who had emigrated, and had
failed TO find their anticipations realized;
and the effect of that is now showing itself
in the diminished number of arrivals.
From September, 1S4s, to the close of March, lS4e
the number arrived at New York was. IS, 900
In the period now just closed il was . Il, 900
II, however, we compare the last two
months with the corresponding ones of last
year, the reduction is far more marked:
February and March, is49, gave. ls,s4e
While 1850 gives. 1856
being reduction Of forty per cent.
The last six months, at Philadelphia,
gives the following results
| lS49 ...........,............. 4,46l
| 1850 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 2,374
or reduction Of almost fifty per cent
The LOWEST estimate that can be made of
the consumption of the various products
of the earth by the immigrant, is, for
the first year, and before he can raise a
grain Of wheat or blade Of grass, two
dollars a week, or one hundred dollars in
the year, at which rate the diminished
demand for those products, resulting from
the diminished arrivals at New York alone,
in the last f,oo months, is almost equal to
the whole of our export Of breadstuffs
from New York to Europe in the last
sir months. The foreign market has
proved worthless, and the domestic one
is being diminished.
| The low wages Of 1849 tend to dimin-
ish immigration in 1850, and the lower
wages Of 1850 will diminish still further that
of 1851. What, then, are the prospects
lof the farmer' Low freights are dimin-