The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1870-02-10
EFFECT OF RADICAL LEGISLATION.


A remarkable speech was recently deliver
ed in Minnesota by Hon. Ignatius Donnelly
a Radical ex-member OF Congress, which
tells great deal of truth, and applies not on
ly to the impoverished farmers of the State,
but to agriculturists all over the country
We quote and commend to Radical readers
the following extract
If in the midst of general prosperity we
are not prosperous, it must be that others are
enriching themselves at our expense. Labor
is wealth. The fruits of our labor do not
they cannot, perish. If we do not receive
the advantage from them, who does?
To answer this question, we must ask our
selves another
What regulates the price of our wheat !?
Clearly, the markets of the world. The price
here is the price in Liverpool, less the frei light
ana commissions. Our price here fuctuates
with the price in Europe.
Hence this great fact stands distinctly out
when we sell our wheat we are brought to
the standard of the markets of the world.
How is it when we buy?
In the production of our wheat we con-
sumo food clothes, implements, material and
labor. Do we purchase these also at the
standard prices of the markets of the world !?
BY no means; we pay from So to 200 per
cent. more for them than we would have to
pay in the markets of the world!
Here then is the heart of all our misery !:
We buy in dear market, we sell in cheap
one.
Every sale we make, makes us poorer We
are rapidly getting to the foot of the hill.
Why is this? Because our country is an
exceptional country; in which the price of
everything, the great agricult lral staples,
is far above the market price of the rest of
the world.
What is it gives to prices in this country
this unnatural eXaltation? The answer is
plain; first, the present high tariff; second,
the initiation OF our currency.
Let us consider the tariff:
We will suppose that you ship twenty BUSH
els of wheat to Liverpool, and it realizes You
fifteen dollars over freight and charges With
that sum, if YOU were in Liverpool, you could
buy yourself an entire suit Of excellent
clothes
But rs you reside here, you take your tif-
teen dollars into a shop in Tasting or Farm
ington and try to buy the same kind of suit.
You are surprised to find that you have to
pay ifty-five dollars for it. That is to say,
twenty bushel of wheat will buy you in LIVER
pool what seventy bushels Of wheat will not
buy you here.
Why does not the Liverpool Merchant send
his cheap goods here to undersel and bring
down the prices Of the dear goods?
lie is fenced out by a Chinese wall called a
high tariff. Does that keephim out ? No:
he can come in and sell his goods by paying
forty dollars tax on them, if you will repay it
TO him on the purchase Of his goods. That
is, he can get in at your expense.
Why do we set up this extraordinary con-
trivance? Because we are told it will encour-
age domestic manufacture.
II Congress were to pass a law that when
ever an Eastern man made suit of clothes,
a Western man should be compelled to send
HIM a draft for forty dollars, the people would
rise up in Instruction. And vet this law
accomplishes the same result indirectly.
Not upon the manufacturers, for the whole
scheme is devised for their benefit What
ever portion they pay is only a deduction
made from their profits. 1t must then be
paid by those who are not manufacturers
in other words, by the agriculturists. 1t is
true there is a commercial class in the COM
munity, but they are comparatively small
amounting to but one million persons in the
whole United States while those dependent
upon agriculture, directly or indirectly, con-
sttute at least three fourths of the entire
population Of our country.
Let us, however, in passing, consider first
the effect of the tariff on the commerce of
the country; it will throw some light upon
its operations on the agricultural classes.
1t is a solemn fact that, under the present
high tariff, the American flag, so far as for
eign commerce is concerned, is rapidly dis
appearing from the seas.
We ship three times the quantity of our
own productions in foreign ships that we do
in our own ships and we import four times
as much in foreign ships as we do in our
own.
Now, fellow-citizens, in precisely the same
manner does the tariff operate upon the grain
grower Of the United States
AS the ship built in the harbor of Maine is
brought in competition with the ships of Eu
rope, so our wheat, raised with high priced
implements, by high priced labor. which has
been fed with high priced food, and clothed
with high priced clothing, and carried at ex
orbitant rates of transportation, is at las
brought into the markets of the world, tC
compete with the wheat of France, Germany
and Russia, raised with cheap labor, cheaply
fed, and eheaply clothed, and cheaply trans
ported. What is the result? We are rapid
ly falling into the condition OF the peasantry
of France before the great revolution, wheI
amid poverty, destitution and suffering they
bore all the burdens of the State and main.
tanned the other classes of the community ir
affluence.
A singular legal controversy threatens te