New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-10-02
THE TARIFF AND THE FARMERS
Ir,,.v IN m Farmer Of Ohio.


nv tina pres.nt low price OF wheat, and desire TO
know IL there 10 any re'uedy in prospect IL there
il not, you are, as you say, disposed 10 -" your
farm, and follow the example Of your neignoorS IN
smigrating to Calif,rnla or Oregon.
That such should be your state OF feeling ooo'
not surprise me. You are disappointed In your
sapguine calculations as to the results WIFI"
were to follow the adoption Of the system hi'o"I
in Manchester and Birmingham BY the name 0'
free trade and which looks TO compelling tue iai-
msrs ard planters of the world to sell all their
nroducts in one market. and TO buy all their cloth
aud their iron in that sane Market KEEP. oy 'ho
men who teach this British free trade. twenty
wears since. as 1 well recoilect, you mad strong
belief in the advantage that must result 70 tho
farmer from bringing the loom and the anvil to
fake their natural places by the side OF the plow
and the harrow; but then, as you will well recol-
lect protection to the American farmer and la
boy.y constituted part Of the Democratic creed
while oId-fashioned Federalism repudiated the
idea that sp,ndles and looms might be as advanta-
geous to a nation as wagons and ships. II was
then no hcresy to believe with JEFFERSON that
the time had arrived when we must place the
manufacturer by the side Of the sgriculturst; nor
with MADISON, that il not only constitution
al, but expcdient, to protect the farmer and the
planter in their efforts to draw around them con-
sumers Of their products; nor with JACKSON, that
1t was greatly to the interest OF farmers and plant
ers that lsrger portion Of our population should
be enabled to devote themselves to the production
OF iron and of cloth, and smaller one be required
to give themselves to the production OF food and
raw materials, thus bringing the consumer to the
side Of the producer. You then thought with
ADAM SMITH, that the natural place for the arti.
san was in the neishborhood of the producer OF
the food and the wool; where both were cheap,
and where he might have abundant supplies Of
food in exchange for the labor employed in con-
yerting the wool into cloth, and thus fitting it for
cheap transportation to distant markets. In
piece Of cloth, said Smith, there are many hum
dIed weights of food and wool; and system
which looked to compelling the farmer to export
his products in their original forms he regarded
rs being ga manifest violation of the most sacred
rights of mankind" So you, too, regarded it; and
therefore il was that you so fully agreed with
JACKSON, that we had been "too long subject to
the policy of British merchants" and that the
day had arrived when we should convert our food
and the other raw materials that so much abound
into commodities that could he chenply carried to
any market of the world, instead Of permitting
ourselves to be compelled to perform ell our trade
with the world through the medium OF the looms
and the shops of England. Since that day, how
ever, ga change has come over the face OF the
dream" Of many Of our politicians, and Manches-
ter free trade has taken the place OF protection to
the American farmer and laborer the former be-
ing now regarded as highly Democratic, and the
latter as little better than sldfashioned Federal
ism; and vet, if we examine the records Of the
Hartford Convention, we shall find there the same
admiration for ships and foreign trade, and the
same dislike for all attempts to limit the necessity
for depending on distant markets, now manifested
by the men of the modern Democratic school.
Times change, and men change with them; and 30
it is with parties. The Democracy Of to-day
stands on ground directly opposed to that on
which stood the one of thirty years since.
Strong as were your convictions that you and
vour brother farmers were to be benefited by pro-
lection, you were yet greatly dazz'ed Dy the idea
of the total removal of restrictions on trade ana
that Won should have been so is not extraordinary,
for there is certainly something pleasant IN the
;dsa OF universal peace and universal freedom oil
intercourse. At length came the repeal oil the
English corn. laws, regarded universally Us a doom
70 the food. producers of the world, who were to
mandate the English market with their products,
and 70 have higher prices the greater the quantity
tbev sent. Our own exports OF bieadstuiis and
"ulL sn
assured us, to rival in amount those oil cotton,
Il" yreat even as those were destined to be under
system of low duties" on foreign fabrics. Our
high duties had, he told us, closed the markets oil
Europe against our food, and to such an extent
that nothing short of famine could open them
but now, by freely admitting the manufactures oil
ENGLAND and of Europe, we were to be enabled
IN feed "the starving millions" of the eastern
bemi,pbere. whose demands were to absorb the
whole of the vast "surplus" for which we then
needed market and the extent OF that surplus
WAS. We were assured, no less than four hundred
millions of6uSkels. Absurd as such statements now
appear they were then put forth with the utmost
gravity through the medium of Patent-Oihce he'
ports which constituted, as we may suppose, the
basis upon which rested the still more absurd cal
culatons issued from the Treasury in relation to
the foreign trade, in accordance with which our
exports of food, cotton, tobacco, &C., we're to in
crease at the rate of almost fifty per cent. per an
mum, as follows:
In Is4s they we're expected TO reach. ee2e,s9S350
In 1919 they were expected 10 reach. 3s9,909 S93
IN 1850 they were expected 70 reach. ASS 455,o16
In the present year hey would be bound, asreea-
bly, to this estimate, to reach thousand and fifty
millions almost one.haf of which would consist
of breadstuGs and provisions How far these an
ticipations have been realized will be seen by an ex-
animation of the following figures exhibiting the
export Of food:
Iu 1867. EOS OOO, 900 In 900
Is47-s.. 81 pa coo ls50-5l..... 2l,94S0O