The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1865-09-07
Use Suggestions touching NOfbl-WeSteFll
- Interests.


At late meeting in Boston of Western
guests of the board of trade, an able anc
sensible speech was made by J.W Brooks
President of the Michigan Central Railroad
a man OF experience and sagacity as well
as of large humanity. His words deserve
the thoughtful reading of all:
and now may mention a subject
when has often given me, as a Western
railroad manager, cause for anxiety. It is
| the seant Of q more steady and reliable mar
ket OR the produce of the great food pro
ducing region. Its power Of production
has hardly begun to be developed, but
even now it is often without market for
its products The natural buyers ofsurplus
food are the manufacturers, and the great
body of these live too far away from u.s..
England does not import food from this
country until she bas exhausted those near
er home, which usually supply nearly all
she requires. Sometimes short crop will
bring ser here for q considerable amount,
and run up prices so high as to stimulate
AN over production and render the surplus
thereafter more unwieIdly than ever. Esti-
mating the growers portion of the price
received at an average of % cents per bushel
fores corn, and go cents for wheat, the ex-
ports Of breadstuffs for the last 18 years
have yielded to the growers an average of
about thirteen millions of dollars per annum,
rising as high as 1884, 500 600 and falling
as low as $3.50, 600 per annum, some years
moro than forty times as great as others,
yielding to the nation maximum of but
a little over a dollar per head, and some
times falling below three cents. This out
let is too insignificant at best, and too unre-
liable at all times for so important an inter
est III our national economy. 1t has not
prevented the price of corn to the farmer OF
Illinois from falling to eight cents per bush
ell, When it is sometimes over eighty. 1t
is not wise Arrangement Of the worlds
economy for those who raise q surplus Of
food and those who have a deficiency to be
separated by a thousand miles Of land car
rage and three thousand miles Of ocean.
Inu situated it IS no wonder that the agri-
cultuFist and the manufacturer who should
be natural allies, meet so seldom
and to such small purpose. Who pays
for this anomalous condition Of things
for the transportation Of raw material and
food from this country to the European man
ufacturer and portion OF this back again?
Tie Western producer makes large con
tribrtion in the lower price and redu-
ced amount of his produce and the foreign
operative very large contribution in wages
and, shame to the nationsI long hours Of
chiidhood's labor, bringing ignorance and
deg isolation misery and want into hundreds
Of thousands Of what ought to be cheerful
and happy homes It is claimed in Eng
land that her cheaper labor will always
make it for our interest to employ her
people to do our manufacturing. Without
questioning the unselfshness Of this advice
it's s0undness may well be doubted A
hundred thousand educated, thinking ope-
ratives will invent, in short time, more
siln olifying processes to cheaper the product
tbs esvill equai the difference in wages, and
thoogl cheap.iabor will avail Of these inven-
lions, tile great result-cheaper product
is due to the educated, higher paid labor
Among all the favors Of which nations
boast, may we be delivered from that OF
cheap labor: it would be fatal to the insti-
tutious of a self governing people. 1t is
the province of Boards of Iraae-those
most useful organizatioDs-to aid in secur-
lug to our land the means Of fully develop
ing its resources 1t is the duty of every
well wisher of his kind to place the hungry
where they can gat food, to educate the ig-
norant and to restore men of all colors from
slavery
Whenever the statesmen of the West
shall feel it their duty, in the National
Council, to promote home manufactures
they will know where to find New England
and when we are all convinced, and act up
on the principle that agriculture, manlfac-
lures and commerce are natural allies, this
people, who have had, of late, so much OF
common sorrow and of common joy, will
not need to tell the story Of our common
glory, for that will tell its own to the nations
of the whole earth" -t-