The state chronicle., 1888-10-19

| 81
ling that the population of the hill towns
or New England is steadily declining. and
It's farming lands are gradually becom
ing unkept wlldernesses. Vast areas in
Connecticut and Massachusetts. formerly
covered with fruitful meadows and grain
fields, are now ''unproftably gav'' with
tenacious sumac and odorou,aBern. The
once-cultivated land is occupied by brush
and brake, and the woodman plies his ak
| where seyenty-five Years ago were heard
the ring of the scythe and the rustic of
| the SICKLE
The writer describes many scenes of
desolation where a few generations ago
We're fruitful fields and happy homes
For instance, there is a rural town in
Connecticut, not 60 miles from New York
| by rail, and barely II from the busy sites
or industry that dot the coast line of the
Sound. From the windows of an old farm
mousse there on June morning one NAV
look down on square mile of bush and
! forest, the rye and clover fields of for
mer generation. The most cas-
ual observer must be impressed by the
number of empty houses along the way.
Count them. One on the corner where
the road leaves the highway, another be-
meath the big elm on the hill, third I'M
| der the hill, a fourth on the next slope
tour houses in five minutes walk, and
only one Is inhabited. Opposite the occu-
! pled house is deserted cellar with crlmb-
| ing walls, and IN the rear are rows of
| scraWny current bushes and beds of tans,
and peppermint, defining what once wa.
a garden plot. OctOgenarlans tell that in
| their day little brown homestead was
here, under whose roof Farmer Morgan and
his wife reared brood of ten children Oh
the produce of the farm that stretched
| back yonder into what is now a waste.
Walking further we count three similar
ruins III adjoining fields, and across the
brook fourth, four vanished homes in a
distance OF quarter of mile.
| There is much more of this melancholy
description, but it must be passed over.
| Assuming that it is not money. bat
lands, houses, and all kinds of personal
property which constitute wealth, it is
plain enough that whilst people are pro
duclng for their own supply that they are
increasing in wealth. But when their
powers of production become equal to
their own supply, and large surplus over
and beyond that, then one of three things
must happen: First, the production must
stop at the home demand, in which case
there is an enforced ideness to that extent
which results in a loss of wealth; second,
If the production continue. il cannot re-
II,
excess or surplus of supply will reduce the
value of all that is sold and no advance in
wealth can be made: or, third, that sur
plus must be sold abroad to foreign ma
tions. The protective policy f rbids this
selling abroad.
Its leaders openly proclaim chat they
intend to reserve the home market for
their own people if they have 10 build
Chinese wall around the United States to
exclude all foreign products. They have
very nearly done so. The tarif reformer5
say that we must so modify Cur laws as
to enable our producers to sell their sur
plus products in the markets Of the world
and this can only be done by apenng
as much as possible all the material of
production and by lowering the duties
upon foreign products to point that will
reasonably permit foreigners t. sell them
III our markets. One thing is CO tain, ,absO-
lutely certain we can not sell H. them IN
less they can to US Foreign trade is sim
ply exchange. The idea that we can
rigidly shut out the manufactured pro-
ducts of all the world and expect all the
world to buy our surplus products is ut
terly absurd. Being out of our iurisdic-
ton our laws can not force them to do it,
Heretofore our vast area of public lands
have brought to us annually a great con
course of immigrants. constantly swelling
our population and thereby enlarging the
market for our productions. This to a
great extent accounts for our past pros
perity, but it is nearly at an end. Our
public lands are rapidly passing into pri-
vate hands-nearly all of the most desira-
bic of them have been occupied. Natur-
ally this vast swarm of immigrants will
diminish whilst the powers of production,
constantly increasing, will make the sur
plus, day by day, far greater than the
home demand. 1t is largely ahead of it
now.
The South raises 1000, 900 bales of cot
ton per annum, 100000 Of which is sur
plus What would she do with it in the
home market? The surplus wheat of the
West is rare less than 150, 600, 900 bushels.
Must it rot in the home market alongside
of her vast surplus of meat and corn?
Then what will be done with it? Prac-
tically the manufacturers are answering
the question every day. Whenever they
find themselves with more on their hands
than they can sell in the home market
they shut down their works and turn their
laborers into the streets. They stop pro-
duction. To enable them to do this effect
lively all those engaged in the manufacture
of the same article enter into combinations
which they call "trusts," by which each
one agrees uuucr pellditieS 10 OBEY the or
ders of the ''trust," to sci! only at certain
prescribed prices, to produce only so much
or to stop production altogether as may
be decreed
Meantime the consumer, finding prices
at home put up on him, is not permitted
to buy abroad by the tariff, must pay
whatever prices are demanded of him for
his supplies, and must sell his own pro-
ductions in glutted markets at home.
Thus is the American farmer situated by
the beauties of this home market theory
which he is invited to support Before
| him stands that high Chinese wall which
| excludes him from the outer world; behind
| him stand the trusts armed with corpor-
ate powers to infict penalties upon any
| treacherous member who shall offer to sell
| him anything below the regulation price,
The fact that any of them still hold the
| title deeds to their farms, still have decent
| clothing for their families and sufficient
| implements for their business, designate
| them as being spec al iavortes of the gods,
who have stamped them with the unmis-
| taxable marks of Immortality.
In the matter of reduction of tax upon
distilled spirits the tender mercies of the
majority have only been awakened, as
usual, for the benefit of the manufactur-
ers. Alcohol used in the arts, as it is eu-
phoneously expressed, is TO be relieved of
all tax. These ''arts'' are principally
practiced by quacks, medical pretenders,
aud compOunders of cosmetics, hair dves,