The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-06-14
What Protection does for the
Farmers,

The farmers have long been treated
| to the most bewildering calculations
for the purpose of showing that the
protected manufactures were their
| sole source of wealth. Immense pains
| have been taken to prove that the
| farmers could not live without the
market afforded by protected manu-
| features; and the statement has been
made Thousand times that foreign
market is a positive injury to the
| American farmer, because, so long as
| he sent his wheat to Liverpool, the
| Liverpool market would fix the
| American price. The wise scheme
| which has been invented for the relief
of the farmer is therefore to make
! the number of his customers less.
| For is he not told that it is positive
injury to him to sell his wheat
in Liverpool? If, then, Liver
| pool can only be prevented
from buying American wheat,
| surely the American farmer viii bt
made more prosperous. These wise
acres overlook the fact that the only
way in which Liverpool can be pre-
vented from fixing the price of Ameri-
can wheat is by preventing Liverpool
| from paving the highest price i'll the
market of the world. The only reason
| why Liverpool fixes a price IS that
Liverpool is the best market; and
! just because it is the best market, the
protectioniSt desires to ruin it, for the
benefit OF the American farmers.
The best answer, hot ever, to all the
nonsense which is talked about the
Liverpool market is the fact thai,
with the increase of protection, the
American home market has
become less and less favor
able to the American farmer.
md he has become constantly more
dependent upon Liverpool. Tht
states upon which large manufac-
turing business is done raise all the
provisions which they need for the
consumption of the manufacturers
and wo:.kmen and they do not now
and they never did, furnish market
to the American farmers in the more
strictly agricultural states. Mr.
Nimnlo, writing i'll the North Amer
lean Review in favor OF protection,
! let's slip the facts that % per cent. OF
al the exports of breatstuffS and
provisions come from the w stern
states, and that the eastern manu-
featuring states consume nearly ali
their own provisions, and neither eX-
plrt abroad nor furnish any consider
able market for the western states.
rne west is absolutely dependent
upon itself and upon Europe. The
eastern market is practically Of no
avail to it. \ TT to support this lnl-
ag;nary eastern market the west has,
for many years, cheerfully borne an
enormous load of taxation, levied I'M
der the pretenSe of protecting Amer
lean industry.
OF course, no considerable class of
American farmers is, or can be, pro
tectrd-that is, direct y benefited by
protection. The idea OF protecting
American cotton, wheat, corn, beef,
pork or mutton Is, OF course to weak
for even protectiOnists to advance.
All these things we produce more
largely than any other country in the
word. We constantly have surplus
OF them, which must be continually
exported. The only importations OF
breadstuffs which we make are those
which come from Canada. and these
affect only very limited por-
ton of the United States
The maintenance of protective
tariff against Canadian breadstuffs is
simply ridiculous. Wool is the only
article raised by farmers which can
seriously be pretended to be benefited
by protection; and that such benefit
is mere delusion has repeatedly been
shown, not only by argument but by
the plain facts of experience, which
show that American wool has always
sold for higher average price when
foreign wool was admitted under lit
= u L 4
wool was heavily taxed. 1t is impos-
sibie to produce every variety OF wool
in this country; and wool cannot be
successfully manufacture without
liberal mixture of every class The
more foreign wool we import, tbs
| more American wool we should want;
and in proportion as foreign wool Is
shut out, it becomes impossible TO use
| American wool in our manufactures
Let us stand for free trade and farm
ers' rights.