The Republican journal., 1884-02-14
Farmers and the Tariff.

The senior class of Haverford College
being DESTROYS to have Political Economy
taught them in the most practical man
ner, have invited many active business
man OF various callings to lecture before
them, Among these was Mr.. James
Wood, a practical farmer Of Hisco, n. Y,
who addressed the students a few even
ings since, upon the tariff. treating it
from the standpoint of farmer His re-
marks were so sensible that they deserve
to be widely read, and carefully consid-
cred. We copy the following from the
report OF his lecture
Let US take an American farmer as the
representative of his class, who has
chiefly cotton and food products to sell.
With freights, commissions, insurance
and waste, his cotton is worth % per
cent. more in Manchester than at home
Corn is bulky, and on its way to feed the
Manchester operatives run the gauntlet
OF ''corners' and other risks, and when
consumed is worth five times more than
where it grew. Bat when the farmer
buys back the cotton manufactured into
cloth that corn has gone into the cost of
the goods. He thus pays dollar or
more for the cotton he sold for twenty or
twenty-five cents, and he pays the cost
manufacture, the manufacturers profit,
and the profit of the goods besides. He
finds that he is selling ''the hide for six
pence and buying back the tail for a
shilling" He resolves to get some one
to make the goods he needs close bv his
home. He soon finds that these home
manufacturers need other things beside
cotton. wool, wheat and corn. They
want land TO build upon, vegetables,
milk and butter, and thousand other
things that he could never send to the
operatives in Manchester Thus he has
d great variety of productive interests
instead OF one or two. There cannot be
a profitable agriculture in the long run
without it, His eggs are no longer all
III one basket. If we thus add one in
dustry after another to these home man
utactures a community will be established
with production, distribution and con
sumption perfectly balanced. All are
mutually dependent, and unite in bear
INC the public burdens, whether it be in
building roads and school houses. or
paving town, county, State or National
taxes. The men in Manchester never
took any hand in these.
But some one says to the farmer: IL
will sell you all your goods, made abroad,
for less money than Yours now cost YOU.
and will take your corn and wheat and
cotton and wool in exchange for them
The farmer asks: GLOW about my pota-
toes and other vegetables, and my hay
and milk and eggs Who will buy my
surplus land ? VINO will help pay my
taxes How shall keep up the fertility
of my land? Your goods may be cheap
er to day, but soon our men will have
more capital and will acquire skill with
/ experience. and will get little better
machinery, and then they " i'll make bet
ter goods than yours and for less money.
They DO SO now with many things They
are paying me good prices for my water
power and my land and hundred things
you don't want. ! can afford to invest
money to-day for the good it will do me
tomorrow. must decline your offer II
You persist in sending your goods here
we VIII put tax upon them and keep ii
there as long as is necessary to protect our
home manufactures" That is the tariff
question from an agrlculturst'S stand
point. If the farmer had continued to send
his products abroad. instead of a home
market for all his various products he
would have only the foreign market for a
few things in which his fellow farmers
would compete with him, and all the rest
of the world trying to undersell bin. In
stead OF the certain home market he would
nave mad only the uncertain foreign one
where the abundance or scarcity of the
crops in other countries determined
whether he should have any market al
all
There is a popular error in reference
to the advantages of foreign trade. The
ancient cities of Palmyra, Tyre, Alexan-
dria, Constantnople, Venice and Genoa
grew rich by foreign commerce. Bu1
this was from goods they bought to sci
again, upon which they charged sucl
prohts that the consumer paid hundred
told their original cost I; while modern
commerce is the interchange between ma
tons, through the medium of money, O
the products of one for those of another
and no country buys to sell again, to any
considerable extent, except England
Free Traders talk of mankind as one Ma
ton. and say that Free Trade is "llatur-
.'l' "h" 1udl IIolectlOn Is unnatural.
Is it ''naturaf for nation to have its
farms on one side of the globe and its
workshops on the other! Is it natural
to send cotton and wool half round the
world and then bring them back again
With unlimited beds of iron ores anG
fields of coal, is it ''natural" to bring oul
railroad and other supplies of iron from
across the ocean With a climate and &
soil fitted to grow all kinds of food, is il
"natural" to exhaust them in growing
but two or three? With a Patent Of
flee attesting the inventive genius anC
mechanical skill of the people, is it "nat
ural' to compel them to grow only raw
products for English skill to manipulate