The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-02-22

FREE TRADE FOR FARMERS.

The speech of the British Minister of Ag-
riculture in the House of Commons, on the
condition of agriculture in England, points
moral in the tariff discussion in this country.
No phase of the free-trade argument has been
more vigorously worked than the alleged
robbery" of farmers by a protective tariff.
Facts and figures have been iuggled with and
twisted out of all resemblance to truth to
prove that American farmers have been
systematically robbed and plundered without
knowing it. They have imagined they were
doing fairly WELL and certainly in the long
run they have done as well as any other class,
but the free-traders assure them they are the
victims of the most cruel extortion. Statist-
les show that during the last twenty-five
years. in which the progress and growth of
the United States have surpassed anything
recorded in the history of the world, agricult-
farmers have shared in the general prosperity.
OF course the agricultural interest, like all
others, has its ups and downs, its periods of
unusual prosperity and of more or less depres-
sion, but comparison of one decade, or one
term Of years with another, shows that the
agricultural interest has prospered under
protective tariff to an extent that is simply
marvellous. Against this great fact, as plain
and palpable as any in history, the free
traders oppose their theory that the farmers
are robbed and plundered by protective
tariff because all their priori reasoning shows
it cannot be otherwise. The force of logic
makes it inevitable from their point of view,
and therefore they assert that it is SO because
it must be so.
If this theory were true we might expect to
find the most prosperous condition of agri-
culture under free trade. If agriculture is
depressed here it must be prosperous in Great
Britain. Let the British Minister of Agri-
culture testify. He said the question of the
depression of agriculture was more important
than the Irish question; that agricultural
values had shrunk during the last year not
less than 5000, 600, 900; that thousands of
acres of land had gone out of cultivation, the
number Of cattle and sheep had been greatly
reduced, and 9oo 900 men were idle owing to
the paralysis of agriculture. This is the
present condition of agriculture in Great
Britain under free trade. as described by an
official not likely to make the case appear
worse than it really is. There is no such
condition of affairs in the United States. To
paraphrase the language of Mr.. Cleveland,
this is not so much question of theories as
it is of conditions, and surely the condition
of the agricultural interest in this country,
after twenty five years Of protective tariff, is
very different from that described by Englands
free-trade Minister of Agriculture as existing
in that country. Perhaps the depression of
agriculture in England is not owing to free
trade, and perhaps its prosperity in this coun-
try is not owing to protection; but it is at
least an interesting coincidence, and presents
two sets of stubborn facts against the school
boy theories of the free traders. In view of
the contrast, American farmers will probably
prefer to continue to be robbed.