Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1888-08-02
Why Protection will Best Pro
mote the Prosperity ofFaru1 eEs.

MO 70 tAc .Oopc<lLJ "a e e1i L1C1o
1t will readily be admitted that
the most essential requisites to pros
perity among farmers are, first, good
health; second, good crops; third,
good prices for what they have to
sell; fourth, reasonable prices for
what they have to buy; fifth, cheap
and convenient transportation.
Most people would assert that
neither a protective tariff nor free
trade could have any special infu-
ence in securing either good health
or good crops; but a careful con-
sideration of the subject will show
that they do exert an important
influence on both.
Prosperity in business is con-
ducive to good health among ali
classes. When business is dull and
people are losing money, the effect
upon health is decidedly injurious.
Thousands of business men lose
their health and go into early graves
through losses and failures in bust
ness. Hundreds of thousands of
farmers have borrowed money either
to purchase farms, or to erect build
ings and make improvements, Civ
ing mortgages at high rates of inter
est, with the expectation of being
able to pay off those mortgages
when they become due, but in con-
sequence of poor crops or low prices
many thousands have had their
farms taken by foreclosure, and have
lost not only their health and prop
erty but even their life by such mis-
fortunes.
That protective tariff tends to
promote manufacturing industries is
admitted even by some of the most
prominent free traders of the coun-
try, and it is self-evident that the
building up of manufacturing indus
tries promotes general prosperity,
and that general prosperity Increases
the value of farms, and the demand
for farm products. This increased
demand necessarily gives the farmer
better prices, which is not only con-
ducive to good health, but also to
good crops; for good prices make
him cheerful and oontented, which
tends to keep him in good health,
and they also give him more money
with which to purchase fertilizers
and thus enrich the soil, upon which
good crops so largely depend.
The prices farmers get for their
products, as well as the prices of
the manufactured articles they buy,
are mainly dependent upon the law
of supply and demand. Anything
which increases the demand for
farm products tends to give the
farmers better prices. Anything
which increases the supply of manu-
featured products tends to make
those products cheaper A high
tariff induces capitalists to construct
factories and establish manufacture
ing industries which create an in
creased demand for laborers, and
give them better wages. This draws
laborers from agricultural into man
ufacturing industries and makes
them consumers instead of pro-
ducers of farm products. This di-
rectly benefits farmers not only by
creating a greater demand for their
products, but it gives them a home
market which insures better returns,
and at the same time home factories
increase the supply Of manufactured
articles which the farmer has to buy,
and thus lessen the price of those
articles.
These facts alone ought to satisfy
every one, and more especially
every farmer, that a high tariff is
Just what is essential to the pro-
motion of the general welfare and
prosperity.
SEVEN Of the ten members of the