Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-11-02
Agriculture and the Tariff.


One good thing is resulting from the
grand tour of the Tariff Commission,
those who are not given an opportunity
to state their views before more legiti-
mate but more formal bodies, can fire.
quently obtain hearing before this duly
authorized, but still nondescTipt, effair.
With the exception of farmers like NJ.
John Roach, agriculture does very little
talking. 1t is brought face to face with
nature and natures laws so constantly,
that the idea of entering into combina-
tiOns and employing lobbies to gel those
laws superseded by artificial systems,
probably does not often occur to the
farmer, and certainly not to farmers as
class But they are thinking people,
nevertheless, and when they are
given an opportunity to state
their views, they are apt to be practical
and to the point. Mr. E. D. Goodwin,
a farmer of Falls Village, Connect
cut, was one of the speakers when the
Tariff Commission visited New York,
and he spoke bravely for a tariff more
equitable to all instead of striving in the
interests of agriculture to N AXE reprisals
upon an industry that through artificial
stimulation has been a load upon aeri-
cultural communities. He said: Gas
a farmer, l am ocated in New
England; for fifty successive seasons on
its sterile soil have | struggled with its
extremes Of heat and cold for a compe-
tence; of my various products / can
raise but one crop year, and that at the
hazard of storm, blight and drought,
while my manufacturing neighbor-bUt
give him market-can multiply his
wheels ad infnitum, and there is no
limit to his products and his profits"
After discussing in an intelligent manner
the protective tariff and its relations to
labor and general business he said: Nov
reduce it by 10 percent. to take effect June
l next, and at the expiration of two
years, 10 per cent more - the re-
ductiOn to be permanent until a
general revision could be reached
thus leaving its average over IS per
cent. This seems the only practical way
of adjustment at present; il is summary,
but public sentiment demands it, and
your protective features are only modi-
fled and not abolished. This reduction
would not only tend to lower values,
more in keeping with the price of labor
and of capital, but might favor a more
healthy competition to the detriment of
shoddy fabrics 1t would pave the way
to that scale of values in all merchandise
favorable alike to the consumer at home
and abroad, and lead to increased COM
mercial intercourse with the out
side world, thus augmenting the
balance of trade in our favor. l am
not so easily 1attered with a tariff
levying duties IN Canadian grain
and live animals which result in shutting
them off from our lines of transportation
and driving them down the st. Law
renee to their ultimate markets as a part
of the great agricultural surplus of the
continent. Neither haye l become
enamOred of your duties On wool, the
chief fruit of which crops out in an
enormous production of shoddy fabrics,
enshrouding the whole American people
in their deceptive embraces, as cold as
the hearts that msde them, leaving my
wool on the market a beggaT at the low
est rates of the last forty years. What
is true Of one real farmer is true OF the
whole, which accounts for the fact that
The great agricultural districts are inelinr
ING strongly to tariff revision.