Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1882-03-04

LII" AANA
thew care whether the American farmer
can find q market for what he is COM
PEELED to export or not. They rely on
keeping him from finding fault by being
able to persuade him that they a
nothing to do with it, and, with their
well-trainsd and well-paid press, they
have rarely any difficulty in doing so.
England is the lien in their path. She
furnishes living, potent proof OF the
~falsehood OF all their arguments in avor
of restriction and protection. If they
could only break down her present sys-
tenn OF free trade and fair exchange of
labor for labor, and product Tor product
with all the world, and induce her to
return to the methods Of her ''Augustan
age, from Queen Anne down throughout
the Georgian era" and tax our wheat.
provisions, pork, cotton, dairy and
other products of our farms rs we do
the products OF her labor, either on the
p~retense of fair trade or retaliation,
they could then prove how uncertain
and unreliable foreign markets are, and
how important 1t is for the farmers to
submit to any subsidy they may demand
in order TO have a home market for
some portion at least OF their products.
England will not, l trust. follow their
advice. If she does, and allows her own
colonies to trade without taxation with
her, while she retaliates upon US by i'm
posing the same duties on our products
that we do ON hers, our farmers will
soon discover the extent Of the imposi-
.tion the protected monopolists and their
advocates have practlced upon them.
The report OF the Canadian commits
sioner OF agriculture shows that they
have In Manitoba over two hundred
million acres OF wheat-producing -coun-
try the reports OF the individual farm
ers show that their yield of wheat varies
from twenty-five to fifty bushels per
acre, weighing from sixty to sixty-si1
pounds to the bushel. Their great
Pacific Railroad will be finished to the
Pacific ocean as soon as our Northern
Pacific Railroad will be. and the trade
of China. Japan, Australia and the In
dies will pass e it. It is nearly
completed to Lake Superior now; thence
the products of that country pass
through the same chain Of lakes ours
has to traverse, and Fort Williams is as
near Buffalo as Chicago is. Their new
enlarged Welland Canal overcomes the
obstruction OF Niagara and their limo is
shorter by rail through Montreal to
Liverpool by over six hundred miles
than any route we can take to get the
wheat OF Dakota through New York to
England. I am amazed that either the
senator from Vermont OF any other sem
ator should seek to persuade England
to adopt a policy so obviously ruin0us
to oil the agricultural interests of the
United States ; indeed to all the people
oil all the states. The American protec-
tionists have already resolved in their
conventions, and have organized q lob
by to enforce it in congress:
t.2d. That the American people in
tend hereafter to keep this market for
themselves that the tariff must be
protective"
They ought to have added, and
hereby surrender this trade with the
rest Of mankind to foreign nations.
Now they urge England to adopt
their platform. return to her "Agus-
tana age" and exclude BY all the pow
ers Of the government American
products, and keep their markets for
themselves aud their colonies. They
have succeeded in bringing France
substantially up to that point. They
hope soon to secure complete Ger
mau cooperation, and if they a
only succeed in closing the markets
of Great Britain against the Ameri-
can farmer they will be happy. She
eau leave them open If she pleases to
all the world beside, aud get her
supplies almost if not quite as cheap
as now, for aught they care. The
value of u exports to Great Britain
in 1881 was about 81 per cent. Of the
whole, and amounted to $481, 1876, O78.
If her ports were closed to us, where
would the vast products find a
market? Nearly all of them, be it
remembered, are unprotected agri-
cultural productions. These exports
bought the goods that supplied the
revenue. Strike them down and
stop imports. make the tariff pro
tective, keep the American market
for the protectionists, as they have
resolved in convention that they will,
and this country will be bankrupt
with all its almost illimitable re-
sources and capabilities.
Mr.. President, l believe in a tariff
adjusted upon a strictly revenue
basis, and made so plain and simple
that any honest importer can under
stand it. 1 wonld adjust it upon ad
valorem principles as far as practica-
BILE. Such a tariff, arranged not to
cripple but to sustain existing and
future manufacturing industries,
would afford all the protection any
legitimate industry would need, and
with q largely extended free list Oh
raw materials would enable them to
compete with other people for the
ment at good wages to operatives,
aid in the consumption of agricul-
tural products far more than now,
and net close. up and starve their
werkmen when the home market is
o%verstocked. Protection. contrac-
ton, restriction, retaliation, all lead
to poverty and the ruin of the masses.
The whole policy of the managers OF
the republican leaders is to restrict,
contract and protect id the interest
of great corporations and .combina-
tons Of wealth, while the inorganic
ed, unprotected mass of. plain, hard
working people have to foot the
bills. Our public lands have been
given away until they are well-nigh
exhausted, and their vast products
are credited to the protective policy.
though the producers are not allowed
to buy what they need with what
they sell, except from associations OF
protected manufacturers at such
prices as they choose to ask. Our
merchant marine is driven frem the
sea, and while we have no ships and
do not build any W orth speaking Of,
except under the monopoly OF the
coastwise trade, the farmer who is
compelled to send his products
abroad, and must do so by ship, is
not allowed to buy a ship abroad at
any price, while the manufacturer
can buy all the English machinery lie
pleases to do the work of American
operatives and turn them adrift the
moment he gets it started. The mil
lionaires, made 70 by congress-, pay
no more to support the federal gov
ernment than their humblest opera
tivcs. In short, congress refuses