New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-07-31
tatiOn, and shipped away to be consumed on another


enable him to diversity his products and thus main
tain and increase the productive capacity Of bis soil
W. will illustrate my general view Of the in
fuence of Protection as il affects the Farming in.
terest by familiar example:
The old Scotch-Irish settlement of Londonderry,
NJ H., is now divided into four townships, ali de-
voted to Agriculture, as they have been since first
settled by White men century and half ago.
With our factories and workshops still in Europe,
her farmers must pay for their Fabrics mainly with
Grain and Meat, sold at somewhat less than their
present tgold) prices But Protection has built up
four great manufacturing centers-Lowell, Nashua
Manchester and Lawrence-On three sides OF old
Londonderry, and but five to fifteen miles Always
and her farmers supply these with Fuel, Timber.
Milk, Apples Hay, &c, at prices which give them
moro than double the return they could realize with
our workshops still in Europe. They sell thousands
of cords of Wood for three to five times as much a.
it would be worth tuncutl but for the proximity OF
manufactures. And their advantage Is being steadily
dused by the sprngng up of one OF another species
Of manufacture, all over the country-in the South
and West moro rapidly Of late than In the North and
East.
Most certainly do believe that the prices Of Home
Manufactures ESTIMATED in Labor or in Farm Pro.
dncts tend steadily downward-that a hundred
bushels of Wheat or Corn, a tun Of Beef OF FORK,
load Of Apples of Potatoes will buy far more ron
or Cloth OF Hardware, in 1869 than it would have
done in any Protective era of our country.
Though the money prices of American fabrics should
range even fifty per cent higher than those of their
Foreign made rivals hold it the true policy OF our
farmers to encourage and prefer the homemade, be-
cause they would TINS advance their own interest by
charging quickening, aud rendering constant, the
demand for their products, while securing better
prices for them.
If such be not the fact why is IL that the farmers
of the British Dominion north Of US are selling
their lands at low rates and even lin some eases
deserving them unsold to buy and work dearer lands
within the bounds of our Union They have lower
taxes and lighter debt in Canada-they have cheap
British fabrics imported under low revenue duties
and they have no serious political grievance or dis
contents yet they crossing over to us this year rs
never before and they come to stay. III Free Trade
is better for the farmer why do they not stay where
they can enjoy it If Protection is not the impulse
to this exodus why have they not poured in upon
us befOrei
Benjamin Franklin, writing home from London in
I'M while these States were still British colonies
and their manufactures systematically discouraged
and repressed by the mother country, thus happily
indicates the interdependelce of Agriculture and
Home Manufactures:
Every manufacture encouraged In our country makes
saves 80 much money 70 the country as must otherwise
be exported to pay for the manufactures he supplies
wherever msnuacture is established which employs
number Of hands The raIue q land ia Lhe neigh
OF farmers and Of land To encourages
young manufactures IN preference to foreign ones
The essential fact here noted is one which any one
may verify by personal observation. Let it be
nosed abroad that city of spndles is TO be
erected on some great waterfall hitherto unimproved
and useless, and how quickly every farmer in the
vicinity advances the price Of his land He may DO
an ultra Free Trader-he may seem to detest Manu-
features corruptng, on some other ground; but
he the less realizes that his farm is worth far
more to-day than il yesterday. 1t is so for the
same reason that landlord who lives on his estates
and spends his income in the vicinity is more pop
ular with his tenants than if he spent his
means in distant cities and foreign capitals Econ
omists may to demonstrate that the difference
is ideal or sentimental but the tenants know better.
That the farmer who has an ample market at his
door may and will diversity his products, improve or
at least retain the better qualities of his soil by
rotation of crops, and return to that soil the ee-
ments which cultivation has exhausted, is plain. On
this point Henry c. Carey happily Says
steadiness and regularity in the returns to sgri-
commodities to the production OF which the land
may be devoted. Disease too, tends TO disappear
population grows, aud a market Is created on or
near the land The poor laborer Of Ireland sees his
Gnceasng exhaustion Of the soil and the agreuurst Of
Portugal witnesses destruction his hopes by the
constant OF the vine disease while the Amer
lean farmer is perpeusly visited by blight resulting
from the necessity for constantly Withdrawing from tho
soil the material required for enabling 10 fully 10 supply
the eyerrecurrng crop OF wheat The man VINO has a
his door nds both blight and insects vanish
from his land, and further enabled from year year
more fully TO profit by the discoveries Of scientific men,
aud by their aid to free himself from disturbing causes
that have hitherto brought TO himself others thus
making his pursuit nearly certain I'm its results as To add
largely TO the value of his labor and his land"
Mr.. E. b. Ward, an extensive iron-master in the
West addressing the farmers of Wisconsin correctly
says:
Protection TO home industry is the business OF good
Government aud It's advocacy the duty OF the intelligent
and enlightened citizen Not monopoly for the benefit
OF any class but protection TO that degree needed
encourage manufactures and benefit farmers and keep
balance OF trade healthy You do not need tariff
wheat TO prevent lis import from Europe for the freight
load OF cheap foreign eor packed ia small compass and
SSy II You hep 70 Keep a1"m she Pr,cs 3 your
home market govern price that shall rule higher than
In Liverpool or Hamburg"
To the same effect, substantially, Adam Smith, in
his Wealth of Nations says:
"The increase and riches OF commercial and mang.
featuring towns contribute 10 the improvement and
yatOn Of the countries TO which they belong In three
different ways: First, by aording great ready
market for the rude produce Of the country they gave
encouragement to its cultivation and further improve
ment. This benefit not confined the coun-
in which they situated, but extended more or
less 70 all those with which they had any dealings To
all Of them, they afforded market for some part either
OF their rude or manufactured produce, and, conse.
quenty gave some encouragement TO the industry and
Improvement of all. Their own country however, on
account OF its neghbOrhood. necessarily derived the
greatest benefit from this market Its rude produce
being charged with less carriage the could pay
growers better price for IT, yet afford as cheap
10 the consumers that OF more distant countries"
This view of the Importance to Agriculture of tho
proximity of Manufactures, is strikingly corrob-
Grated by Aid. Mechi, of the foremost practical
farmers and land-improyers in Great Britain. who
says?