St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-09-02
SUNDAY TA12IFF TALK.

1t is a we'll understood fact that the
great bulk of the export trade of the
United States is the product of the
farms. We export less than per cent
of our manufactured product. 1t is also
well understood that the prices of farm
products are regulated by the foreign
demand for our surplus. and by our
home market. This being the case, it
follows as natural sequence that our
farmers sell in the open markets of the
wOrld-that is, free market-and the
things they consume are purchased in a
restricted or highly protected market.
And the average duty on the articles
the farmer purchases amounts to 4S per
cent.
In other words, our government does
not interfere with the farmers right to
sell his surplus products where he
pleaseS, but when he comes to purchase
articles in the market where he sells,
then his government steps in and says:
SYou may exchange your wheat for
iron, wooden cloths, or blankets, but
when they enter our ports we will
exact a tax averaging G7 per cent on
your wool cloth, clothing, hats, caps,
socks and the like, and from 81 to 100
per cent on your blankets. If you wish
to import machinery used on the farm,
and made of iron, wood or steel, we will
tax you So per cent on the wood, and
from 20 to 100 per cent on your iron and
steel"
The farmer learns from this that the
duty on WOODEN, iron and steel is almost
prOhibitOry. Forced to purchase in the
home market, he finds the heavy tax on
these articles enhances the cost to an
amount equal to the foreign cost with
duty added, transportation commission
and custom house fees. Naturally he
asks himself, "Why am l thus taXed?"
He has no objection to he taxed for the
support of the government under
which he lives. But here are taxes far
beyond the necessities of government.
There are over $4,000, 100000 invested
in farms in the United States, and their
products probably amount to four times
as much as those of manufactures.
The laborerS engaged in agriculture
amount to 80 per cent of all laborers in
the country. They receive no benefit
from the tariff. On the contrary, they
are taxed to support the manufacturing
industries.
Surprised at this showing, the farmer
pushes his inquiries still further, and
finds the whole people pay $1,000, O0O,-
900 on account of the customs revenue
tax. OF this, S215,000.000 finds its way
into the United States treasury, and
S7S5, 900, 900 goes to support the protected
industries. He finds for every dollar
paid by the manufacturer, the farmer
pays four and half times as much.
And since the farmer sells in free
market, the 80 per cent of farm laborers
have to compete with the pauper labor
of great wheat-producing Russia, where
farm hands receive from 20 to 80 cents
a day; or of India. where the price of
labor is 10 cents day.
The most powerful argument the pro-
tectioniStS possess for the mass of Amer
lean wOrkingmen is the claim that the
high tariff maintains the dignity of
labor and of the laborer by securing to
him wages higher than his trade or en-
ployment pays his competitors in foreign
countries. If this were true, and if any
system of lawmaking at Washington
could guarantee the American laborer
on the farm or in the factory rate of
pay that would enable him to do less
work and give him more time TO edu-
cate himself and more money to educate
his family and raise them in intelligence
and good citizenship, there would be no
controversy. We should all be protec-
tionists if protection did this. But we
know both from theory and experience,
from the processes of logic and the bet
ter lesson of fact, from figures and from
strikes and their attendant misery, that
protection benefits only the owners of
mills and factories, enabling them to
accumulate huge fortunes at the ex-
pense of labor all the country over.
9or the farmer protection is snare and