American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-08-30

| anu grace.
THE chirping and singing of the cricke
and grasshopper are frequently spoken of
But they do not sing-they fiddle BY
rubbing legs and wings together, each il
manner peculiar to the species, these in
sects produce the sounds which charac
terIZe them. PEI haps our best insect in
strumental performer is the " katydid.'
Each wing contains little tambourine
and, by the opening and shutting of the
wings, these are rubbed against eacl
other, and produce the sounds of "Katy
dId-she-did," which can be heard at :;
long distance, and gives the insect its
name.
The Effects of ssPrOtectiOn.''
THERE are two things which may be
accepted as facts: 1. The United States
produce more cotton, more beef more
pork, more cheese and more grain than
they can consume; the export of the sur
plus is, therefore, a necessity. ,. No man
exports any article unless he can get more
for it abroad than he can at home. So
| long, therefore, as the country produces a
surplus, and a better market is offered for
| 1t abroad than at home, so long will this
| surplus be exported. Resulting from
these conditions is the other fact, that the
| price of all these articles at home is regul-
| lated by the price which can be obtained
for them abroad When the price for
| grain advances in Liverpool, the advances
| extends back to the remOtest cOrn-crib
when the price declines in Liverpool, then
the price of all the grain in the country
| recedeS in the same proportion, the value
of the grain for expectation determining
the value of the whole stock in the coun-
| try. Ever since the foundation of this
| Government, the United States have i'm
| ported largely Of foreign products, and
never so largely as within the last few
| years These imports have to be paid for
with such surplus products as we have
cotton, tobacco, beef, pork or breadstufis,
or with the products of the mines, gold,
| silver or lead. 1t is fortunate that we have
this surplus of products; if we did not
| have them, we would be precisely that
| much poorer than we are. Having them,
| we are able to exchange them for their
equivalents in those articles made or
grown elsewhere which we desire to have.
Protection assails the commercial value
| of all our surplus productions by what is
| equivalent to an export duty of 40 per
cent. That is to say, when we send grain
| or provisions of the value of $ | 900 abroad.
| protection provides that with the proceed
we shall purchase but $50 worth of for
| eign products; the other $3.50 it collects
| as tax. Not content with thus robbing
the producers of 40 per cent of the value
| sist that they should not have anything to
sell at all, or at least nothing to sell abroad.
| If every farmer produced only enough
grain to feed himself and his family, there
would be a famine in the land, and the
farmer and his family would be reduced
to the condition of subsisting exclusively
upon the products of his own farm. He
| would have nothing to exchange for
clothes, boots or shoes, salt, iron, lumber,
| or even for an increase of his live stock.
If the productions of breadstuffs in this
country only eQualed the consumption of
the whole people, the price at which they
| would be sold would be regulated by the
price at which we could import them from
other countries; so whether we produce
a surplus or deficit of breadstutfs, the
highest price we can ever obtain for them is
the lowest price at which they sell for in
foreign markets. The surplus represents
the farmers profit, and any law which
cOnfScateS forty nine per cent. of that
surplus in the way of export tax on the
thing sent out, or import tax on the thing
received in exchange, is robbery so
plain and so evident that any man of or
binary reason must recognize it at once.
The protectionists say that, if we did
not export any breadstuffs, but relied ex-
clusively on sales at home, there would
be better prices. What would become
of the surplus is not explained. AS we
have said, no man exports a bushel Of
grain until he is offered more Tor it
abroad than he can get at home. The
export of grain, therefore, never begins
until the home market is satisfied 1t is
the price offered abroad that prevents the
home market going farther down. If the
expectation of grain were cut Oft, then the
prices would recede to the mere cost of
transportation. The protectionists tell
people that if there were Lowell and a
Pittsburgh in every section of the coun-
try, then the consumption of breadstuffs
at home would be so great that the
farmers would get large prices for all they
produce.
We have shown previously that if all
the persons engaged in the whole United
States in the manufacture of cotton, wool,
and iron were collected together and put
down in Illinois, they would not consume
the breadstuffs and other products of ten
counties in this State. Corn sells for
seventy-five cents at Lowell; but the
operatives, if located on Rock River,
would pay for their corn, not the price
that it brings at Lowell, but the price at
Rock River And if the producers of
corn on Rock River should advance the
price to seventy cents, corn would flow
into that district from all parts of the
State and other States, in such quantities
that the price would be the same as be-
they pay seventy-tiv cents per buShel for
corn, pay fifteen or twenty cents for the
corn, and fifty five or sixty cents for trans
pOrtation. If these same people be re-
moved to Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, or
elsewhere, they would pay precisely the
current price of the corn at the place OF
growth, with the cost of transportation
added, no more and no less. The people
of Pittsburgh buy their wheat and corn
where they can get it cheapest The
price of Pennsylvania wheat and corn in
Pittsburgh is regulated by the price at
which Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois wheat
and corn can be delivered there. The
prices in the home market of the Penn
sylvania farmers are absolutely con
trolled by the prices at which the
products of Western farmers can be deliv
cred there. The result is, that, while
Western Pennsylvania imports largely OF
breadstuffs from the Western States, East
ern Pennsylvania exports her grain to New
England or to Europe. The price of grain
in all parts of Pennsylvania is the price of
the same kind of grain in Iowa, with the
cost of transportation added. There is no
such thing in any part OF the United
States as a home market exclusively; the
price of every commodity at every point
is the price at the place of production,
with the cost of transportation added. If
corn is selling for ten cents in Iowa, the
price of like corn will be ten cents per
bushel in Maine, Florida, Colorado, Mas
sachusetts, Pennsylvania, and everywhere
else, with the cost of transportation added.
Any other representation is false and
fraudulent; any other Theory is Il delusion,
invented to divert attention OF producers
from the fact that 40 per cent. of every ag