Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1884-10-08


ducts amounting to s6S3,0OO,OOO; so
that, deducting exports from products,
we have consumed by the entire popu-
lation Of the United States $780,
100000, not quite seventy per cent,
instead of the ninety per cent. of the
gentleman from Ohio. And we find
that the much despised foreigner
furnished us n market for $685.
100000 of our agricultural pro-
ducts. In other words, the paupers,
as they are called, whose cheap goods
it is the purpose of the gentleman
from Ohio to prohibit our farmers
from buying, actually buy from our
farmers more than thirty per cent. of
all they produce.
Now, how much to the farmer is
the value of the home market fur
nished by the manufacturing, me-
chanical, and mining classes all put
together2 They constitute but twenty
ty-two per cent. of the population.
Not one-third Of them are in any
manner protected, as it is called, by
these prohibitory laws. Taken alto
gether, the laborers in all these in
dustries are, as | shall attempt to
show, injured by the shackles the law
has placed upon their industry. This
is the table have taken from the
census returns: All occupations, IT.
392, 099; agriculture, 1870, 493; per-
sonal and professional services, 4,074,-
23S trade and transportation, $780,
1885, manufacturing, mechanical, and
mining, 3,837,112. These, with the
women and children and others de-
pendent upon them, constitute our
population. Those in the fifth class
constitute, as | have said, only twenty
two per cent. of the whole. That
fifth class comprises brick makers,
builders and contractors, bakers, but
cheers, carpenters, masons, and a hum
dred other occupations whose work
manship finds no competition with
imported articles. Largely more than
half of those embraced in that class
can never by any possibility find their
products competing in this country
with the foreign article.
But embrace them all and they
constitute but twenty-five per cent.
and consume but $336,000,00O or fif-
teen per cent. of what the farmer
makes, while the foreigner furnishes a
market for thirty per cent. IF those
who seek to compel the farmers by
law to buy all their goods from them
at their own prices could only buy all
the farmers produce at prices fixed
by the farmer, there would be some
reciprocity. But all the surplus cot
ton and wheat and bacon and other
produce must be exported and must
compete with that produced by labor
abroad, and the foreign market and
the home market act upon and regu-
late each other. Foreign demand is
the only relief for surplus at home.
But what relief for the farmer do the
gentlemen on the other side suggest ?
Two remedies have been proposed.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania
Mr.. Kelley wrote letter, l believe,
recently to the West urging the farm
ers there to turn their attention to
sorghum-to making sorghum sugar.
Now, how much sugar is imported
into this country? Ninety-one mil
lion dollars worth. That supplies our
wants. Suppose the farmers of the
country make, as the gentleman from
Pennsylvania thinks they can, sorg-
hum sugar and molassess, and supply
the country just as cheaply as it can
be supplied by importation, what
would be the result? This new in
dustry would take off ninety-one mil
lions from our exports, and would
leave still about five hundred and
ninety millions for foreign consump-
ton. The agriculturist would still
have no relief. He would still have
to compete in foreign markets.
Then comes my friend from Massa-
chusetts Mr.. RUSSELL, my colleague
on the committee, with his little RENE
dy. He says if we only raise the du-
ties high enough we will eventually
produce at home all the manufactured
goods now imported, that we would
thereby support 100000 more labor
ers, and that they with those depend
ent upon them would be three and a
half millions of people. Mr.. Chair
man, how long would it take this
country to increase three millions and
half in population BY natural
increase and immigration just about
three years. So, if to please my
friend we should raise Chinese wall
around us so high that we could i'm
port no dutiable goods and should
produce them all at home, we would
give occupation to just the number of
people who will be added to our popu-
lation in the next three years. And
how much of what the farmer has
to dispose of would they consume ?
Giving them just as much per capita
as the farmers consume, the answer is
$106,000,000; so that, if, following
the plan of our friend from Pennsyl-
vania Mr.. Kelley, we compel our
Western farmers to raise sorghum
and make all the sugar we want, and
then, following the plan of the gentle
man from Massachusetts, Mr.. RUSSELL
we raise duties so high that we could
import nothing, but must make every
thing at home, you would thus get
consumers for $197, 100000 of farm
products. But as you had 1858, O00,-
900 surplus, that would leave you
about 1886, 100000 still undisposed of
and the farmers of the West and of
the South would still have to look
abroad for purchasers.
You cannot dodge these facts.
They cannot be evaded. To export
our agricultural products is an abso-
Into necessitv unless the gentleman