The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1885-05-20
rarmers and Protection.
louisville Commercials

| louisville Commercially
The Nashville American undertakes
to convince the farmers that the idea
that protective tariff furnishes home
market for their products il deIusion
by publishing figures 10 show that for
the last sixty years or more farm pro-
ducts have furnished, on an average,
something over eighty per cent. Of our
exports. We cannot see that its figures.
are relevant 20 the discussion.
The fact that We manufacture very
largely is admitted. We export our sur
plus of manufactures just as we export
our surplus of agricultural products.
That our export of manufactures is such
small part of our total exports shows,
first, that nearly all our manufactures
are needed and consumed at home, and
second, that the amount of capital and
labor already employed in agriculture
produces large surplus, which We have
to find market for abroad. A policy
which would turn more capital and labor
into agriculture and divert it from man
ufactures is certainly not advantageous
to the farmers. They want more con-
sumers and not mere competitors. To
show fairly the interest of farmers in a
home market the American, instead of
printing figures to show tina: the farmers
can now raise more than they can sell at
home, should have published those which
show how large proportion of all the
agricultural products raised in the coun-
try are consumed at home, and how
small a proportion the amount sent
abroad Is of the total production. The
fact is, that about ninety-two per cent.
of all the farmers raise is consumed in
the home market, and only about eight
per cent. has TO seek foreign consumers.
A market close at hand which takes
% per cent. of his product is more val
liable one to the farmer than one thou
sands of miles away which takes only s
per cent. Nobody understands better
than farmer that the cost of getting
his products to market is the heayiesss
drain on his profits. The Million, free
trade paper, recently published an article,
with diagram, to show how small prdf,or-
tionally was the number of men employ
ed in what it chose to distinguish Us the
protected industries. Absolutely, how
ever, the number was large. Now it is
established that forty per cent. of pop
ulatlon engaged in agriculture can raise
all that is necessary for the consumption
of the whole population. There is more
than forty per cent. of our population
now engaged in agriculture. If the men
now engaged in protected industries have
to abandon them, they cease to be profit
able customers for farmers, and mast,
owing TO the fact that land is cheap and
plentiful, and to the further fact that all
other branches of business are now capa-
bic of producing all needed i'm their lines,
turn to agriculture for support and be-
come competitors of the farmers. The
business of farmers can suffer from over
producbson as we'll rs that of manufae-
lures, and it is not the interest of farmers
to invite competition and oyerproduc-
ton.
Statistics show very plainly that the
price of farm lands and farm products
and the wages of farm labor are highest
III those communities of our country in
which only fifty per cent. or less of the
people are engaged in agriculture and the
rest in other pursuits, and that as the
proportion engaged in agriculture in
creases the price of land and products
and the wages of labor increase.
The nearness of large bodies of men en-
gagged in other pursuits than agriculture
enables the farmer 10 devote attention to
that large class of products that will not
bear transportation--to small farming
which is much the most advantageous
and profitable kind of farming. Every
farmer knows that large factory in his
neighborhood helps him, and policy
which encourages the building of fact0-
ries is better for him than one which
prefers to send fortunes across the ocean.