The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-12-18
How the Farmer is Fooled.

rom st. Louis Republican.
L 1t is often said by the protectionists, that,
1owever hardly prohibitory tariffs may affect
other people, they are certainly of benefit to
the farmer; that manufactures which would
not naturally exist in his neighborhood are
arti6cially enabled to come there; and that
there is an immediate consequent increase in
the price of his products which is wholly to
his advantage. This is plausible, but talla-
| cious. If that were the whole story there
would be nothing to reply. The answer is
that it is not the whole story by any manner
of means.
Suppose that the particular manufacture
which is artifcally brought to the farmers
| neighborhood is hardware, and that the pro-
tective tariff which brings it there is 30 per
cent. Then, for all the tools and implements
| which the farmer could buy in free market
| for 500 he must now pay $3.50. A cotton and
wooden factory are next added, with a SIM
liar protection, and the farmer must pay $3.50
| for clothing and house furnishing which he
would have in free market for 500. In
short, system of protective tariffs averaging,
as ours does, not 80, but Al per cent, has this
simple effect that it increases the cost of farm
ing and living by very nearly one-half. 1t is
true that the farmer can sell his garden sass"
little dearer than he could before; but it is
not by the sale of garden sass that most farm.
ers make their living.
The articles by the sale of which our farmers
make their living are the great staples of COM
meree, such as wheat and other grains, cotton
and tobacco, for which there is a demand in
the markets of the world-that is to say, in
foreign markets; and the price of such COM
modities is not in the least determined by any
local circumstances. Take wheat for e.. 11-x=
annla Within n 49,. L l.. 49,. i.
| farm liable competitor with US in the wheat
market. Ten years ago India exported only
an uncomfortable amount of wheat, and now
she is sending to Europe two-thirds of the
whole amount which England requires for her
home supply. The output of the Indian
market is watched not only in India and
London, but also in New York, Chicago and
st. Louis, because the price of the wheat
ssEich' our farmers raise depends, not upon4he
numbers of factories they may have in their
neighborhood, but on the amount of wheat
shipped from India to Europe. Thus it comes
+ to pass that, while the farmer can get no more
for his products than the price which the mar
ket of the world fixes, the protective tariff
makes him pay AZ cents of taxation on every
dollars worth of manufactured supplies which
he consumes. Whether the local trade in
garden sass is large enough to compensate
him for this monstrous imposition, the Ameri-
can farmer must be left to judge for himself.
There is another point which deserves his
consideration. Our protective tariff is fast
driving English trade from our shores to In
dia, and the change is coming about in this
way: Our protective tariff virtually excludes
large amount of English manufactures. In
other words, we refuse to deal in the commo-
dities which England produces, so that when
English merchants want our grain they must
81 och 60 Rr,f tnHIo thnxr and
not pay hard cash at all. They send their
manufactured goods at fair profit, say Is
per cent, and in this way they can buy a dol
lars worth of wheat in the Indian market for
goods which cost them only So cents. Thus
the Indian wheat trade is built up, and the
price of wheat in the hands of the American
farmer is being steadily brought down.
Still another point for consideration. The
dollar received by the Indian farmer will buy
exactly dollars worth of goods of any and
all sorts. He is not made to pay tax of Al
cents on every dollar he spends, as the Amer
lean farmer is, and it stands to reason that
under such a state of things labor which cost
a dollar there must cost $1.47 here. Thus
the American farmer is competing with the
Indian ryot at a disadvantage of three to two
in producing his crops, in the cost of all his
implements and also in the cost of living.
The competition of India with this country as
a wheat and cotton producer is certain to be
immensely greater year by year. In other
words, the prices of wheat and cotton are
certain, under ordinary circumstances, to fall
and to keep falling, and unless the American
proaueaH~if IS relieved from his present enor-
nous burden of taxatunI viii iiAr-iute -dffven-
from the market altogether. We hear great
deal in favor of protecting manufacturers. 1t
would be well to consider the fact that we are
preparing certain and inevitable ruin for Our
agriculturists; and when they are ruined it
may be worth while further to consider how
the manufacturers are to find buyers for their
goods. Whether farmers are ruined or not,
it is assumed that manufacturers must GER
tainly be benefited by them. On the contra
ry, however, nothing is more certain than
that the unhealthy stimulus given to manu-
facturers by protective tariffs tends in the long
ran to the ruin of that interest and, to the
complete degradation of the operative class.
But of that side of the question hereafter.