The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1852-04-24
Canadian Hecinr0ciiX.

| A friend who resides in Western New York
writes us as follows: 'Some of the Rochester
| milers have been petltoning Congress in favor
of reciprocity with Canada in import and
export of the agricultural products of the two
| countries, and similar petition has, as un-
derstand, been sent from Buffalo. The in
ducement to that course on the part of the
millers, is the fact that Canadian wheat is the
very best next TO pure Genesee--far superior
to Ohio and Michigan, and infinitely superior
to other western wheat. If ground there, it
would be branded, and pass for pure Genesee.
They now mix selected lots of the best Ohio
and Michigan with that of this region, and
| make the whole pass for Genesee flour. If
successful in the effort now being made, it
will utterly destroy this market for western
wheat; no trfling matter, as should think,
for western people'
But few days since we furnished our read
ers with an extract from the New York Jour
nal Of Commerce, in which it was stated that,
notwithstanding the existence of famine in
many parts of Europe, there appeared no rea-
son for expecting that prices abroad would rise;
and since that date we have had further arrivals,
all bringing advices of decline, proving that
even short crops abroad no longer make a mar
ket for our food. The price of flour falls from
day to day, and the farmers are now beginning
to realize the value of Mr.. Walkers promises
of demand from Europe for hundreds of mil
lions Of dollars worth of their products, if we
would but consent to ''receive their fabrics at
low duties" We did 80 consent, and the con-
sequences are seen in the facts that our markets
are inundated with foreign food in the various
forms of lead, hemp, iron, coal. and cloth, and
that while we thus import food on so large a
scale, we export to Europe 50 little that, were
the whole Of that trade to disappear, it would
affect SO small an extent the gross amount of our
exports as scarcely to be missed. We regard it
as doubtful if all the food we this year send to
that part of the world will suffice for the payment
of the interest alone on the amount of foreign
food we have purchased in the last five years in
the form Of cloth and iron. Under such crcum-,
stances it is that our farmers are asked to throw
open the domestic market for the agricultural
products of Canada, whose wheat is 80 far SUI
whose land is SO much cheaper. Instead Of
making market at home for their own pro-
ducts, for which they can now find none abroad
they are asked to divide with foreigners the
privilege they now have ofsupplying with food
that portion of the consuming population that
the tariff Of 1916 has left in existence; and the
claim Of Britain thus put forth is urged by many
of the Representatives of those western States
whose interests must inevitably suffer most
severely from the competition of the cheap labor
and cheap land of Canada. Not content with
buying food in the forms of cloth and of iron, of
lead and Of hemp, they now desire to have
the men who yet make cloth and iron
supply themselves with foreign food For
the sake of the permanent prosperity of the
country. it might perhaps be well that they
should now proceed; for we know of no mea-
sure more likely to bring about that state of
things which will lead our farmers to correct
understanding Of the fact, that they it is that
need protection, and that, while nominally pro-
tecting the miners Of coal and of ore, and the
makers Of cloth and of iron, they are, in
maintaining an efficient tariff, really pro-
tecting themselves against the British sys-
TEN, which looks to giving the farmers and
planters Of the world but one market in which
to sell, and but one in which TO buy; and thus
enabling the people of Liverpool and London,
Birmingham and Manchester, to fix the prices
at which they will buy, and the prices at which
they will SELL.