The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-11


never pays farthing beyond the price at
which other grain is offered him. In buy
ing his bread and provisions, he has the
whole world to choose in, giving, of course,
the preference to the countries which take
his products in exchange for theirs. The
result is that he only deals with the United
States upon compulsiou, and never when he
can get what he wants elsewhere. But when
we come to buy our iron, cotton and woollen
goods, glass, cutlery, boots, and shoes, the
Government interposes and tells us we must
do one of two things-either buy what we
want at home, paying sixty per cent. more
than we can get the same for elsewhere, or
pay q fine of sixty per cent. for buying from
Europe. We have been submitting to
this outrage for SO many years that
most persons had settled down in the
belief that it was fixed policy,
and 30 long as prices of bread
stuffs remained unchanged they paid no
special attention to its operation. But the
fall in breadstuffs brings the case home to
us in the most telling manner. The price of
cotton and woollen goods, of iron, and of all
the necessaries of life which we have to buy,
remain fixed by law. While the Englishman
is at liberty to buy, and does buy, all he needs
in whatever market he can obtain it cheapest,
we have no choice. The Government has a
Gordon of officers along the frontier to COM
established by law. We produce and send to
Csdiz, in Spain, slaves and headings to the
value of 81. 600 600 annually. The price of
salt in Cadiz is about twelve cents per 100
pounds. This shipment of slaves and head
ipgs would, therefore, purchase in Cadiz as
many hundred pounds of salt as twelve cents
are contained in ST, 200, 900. But the Gov
eminent interposes and prohibits the ex-
change of slaves for salt, under a penalty of
eighteen cents, in gold, per 100 pounds. If
the shipper persists in making the exchange
as he must do, or bring back his vessel
empty, he must lay aside eighteen cents in
gold to pay the penalty for every twelve
cents be expends in salt, and, instead of
bringing home the value of his slaves in
SALT he brings back 100000 worth of that
article, and 100000 in gold to pay the tax
thereon.
Producers of grain and provisions are sub
jected to precisely the same process. We
send grain abroad, and are compelled to take
such prices as we can obtain. If we send
$1,000, 600 worth of breadstuffs to Liver
pool, we are not permitted to purchase that
amount of cloth or other articles we need, or,
if we do, we must divide our money, so that
for every dollar worth of goods we buy, we
shall have from sixty to ninety cents in gold
to pay the penalty for making the purchase.
If, as is the case now, the price of breadstuffs
has fallen, say, 20 per cent, then we must
| bear the whole loss of the reduction. and
have only $SOO,000 to purchase goods and
pay the tax.
Since 1868, in the short period of two
years, the price of breadstuffs has declined 4C
| per cent. Under the operation of the tariff
we have to produce 40 per cent. more in 1876
to purchase the same quantity of clothing
and hardware that we bought in 1868, or we
must, in addition to our whole crop, forward
40 per cent. in cash. We have reached that
point now. Taking the average needs of oui
people, in clothing, furniture, iron, and al
other manufactured goods, to be the same as
in 1868, it requires 40 per cent. more of oui
productions to purchase them now than il
did in 1868. This 40 cents on the dollar has
to be made good by that much increased
| labor, or that much drawn from previous
savings.
Those who wonder why it is that, with oul
increased population and increased produc
! ton, we are constantly expending all we
earn, and, in addition, are compelled to en-
croach upon our accumulations, will find the
| true explanation in the fact that the prices oi
| all we have to buy are upheld and maintained
| by arbitrary enactments; and that we are
compelled to sell what we produce for what
ever we can get. If the barriers which Con
| gress has erected against our trading with
| the people who buy our crops we're removed
| if the law which oonfscates 60 per cent. o.
| our earnings to subsidize others were re
| pealed, we should find immediate relief, ant
| the property which is now flowing away from
| us would remain in the hands of the rightfu
| owners. r.,-.