Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-03-08

!
citizens. Can anything in this wide world be
80 senseless and silly as this After this nation
has sacrificed ahundred thousand of lives and
spent one hundred millions of dollars in re-
covering our independence from Great Brit
ain. spent more even in the second war for
independence from ls12-1sl5, vanqnished
Mexico, crushed the greatest rebellion known
to history, built up these domestic markets
by hundred years of protective tariff,
made homes for a population of Co.,
600, 600, scattered over our almost
boundless territory, created an asylum
for many millions of the oppressed and down.
trodden of other lands, to now swing wide
open our doors and say to the traffcers of the
world. Here is the place where yon can sell
your cheap goods; here are harbors in which
your ships can ride in safety; here are count
less millions of gold and silver for which we
have no use, but you can have ii in exchange
for your cheap commodities, which no other
nation in the world will buy" Is there any
thing in the wide panorama of folies from
the days of Adam until now so foolish and
unwise as this? Adam and Eve when they
ate the fated apple. the antedeluyians when
they scoffed at Noah. the Jews when they
crucifed the Saviour, Napoleon when he led
the grand army of France to perish in the
SHOWS of a Russian winter, and southern
rebels when they undertook to found an
empire with slavery for its corner stone,
were each and all wiser in their day and
generation than are the Democrats of 1883.
There are some person who, copying a
silly remark which has become fashionabl,
in some temperance discussions, that pro
hibition does not prohibit" are accustomed
TO say that protection does not protect"
H.. l. i l..
the tariff, and all would be better without it.
They claim that they are not Free Trade
men by any means, but still claim that the
protective tariff does no one any good.
We will test that thing and see what it is
worth. We will suppose that two farms of
equally good and productive land. and under
the same cultivation, and of equal price, lie
side BY side of each other on opposite sides
of the line between Maine and New Brun-
swick, one of the farms in Maine and
the other in New Brunswick. Each of
these farms produces in the same year
1000 bushels of potatoes, 500 bushels
of oats, 100 bushels of wheat, sell 800
dollars worth of sheep and other live
stock sell 400 pounds of butter, 400 pounds
Of pork, and 80 tons of hay.
This is no unusual crop to be raised upon
an Aroostook farm, besides what is consumed
in the family and by the stock upon the
farm. Both of these farmers sell their
surplus produce in the American
market; the Aroostook farmer be-
cause he chooses to do so, it being the best
within his reach, and a market with which he
is satisfied. The New Brunswick farmer is
compelled to sell in the American market if
he sells at all, because there is no other in
which he can sell at any price except perhaps
the limited amount required by his neigh
bors and the most that he has to sell they do
not want at any price, with the following re-
suit 200O bush of potatoes if sold at the
starch factory, $500; if kept until winter and
sold to be semitic Boston $1,000; in either case
there is $500 discount from this value which
the New Brunswick farmer must pay for in
import duty. 500 bushels of oats at 40 cts. per
bushe, 5000, with $50 off for duty; 100
bushels of wheat at 81 80 per bushel, $40 off
for duty $500 worth of live stock, $50
off for duty; 400 pounds of butter,
Acts. per pound duty, SIG; 400 pounds
of pork, $40, IS off for duty and fifty tons of
hay at SS per ton $500, 81 off for duty. The
value of the products of each farm at the
prices for which their products sell this year
is So, 10, if sold in the American market,
but the New Brunswick farmer has to pay
of the product of his farm to 81 GIG. Here
is an answer to the question in former num-
Der, why farms on this side of the line of
Eastern Maine are being constantly sold to
people from New Brunswick who sell their
farms there for what they can get, and come
here and purchase others. When asked why
they do so they reply, 80, this is better
place to live than in New Brunswick. We
can sell what we raise for better price here
than there" They do not think, perhaps
never know, why it is so. But the plain
reason is we here live under a government
which protects the farmer and all other work
ngmen from the result of competition with
all the rest of the world. The competition
among ourselves keeps down prices to a lv-
ing rate for all, but we are not compelled to
labor at starvation prices in competing with
paupers and poverty stricken races of other
lands.
No matter in what part of the Dominion of
Canada the foreign farm may be, its owner
must pay the duty upon its products if sold
anywhere within the United States, and no
matter where American farm may be, he is
exempt from paving any duty upon its pro-
duets. The value of the years labor and of
the product of his farm is worth S554 more
than is his neighbor's, and just that extent he
is protected against the competition in the
market. PLEBIAN.
Aroostook County.