Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1888-02-11
WANT PROTECTION, TOO.
EARMERs' VIEWS As TO THE BENEFITS
or TARIFF.

several Thousand Replies Sent In Response
10 n Request for THAR Opinions Regard
inr what Profession Has Done for Agri-
culture--A Petition Prepared.
NEW YoRK, Feb. S.-Some time ago the
Tribune Of this city invited an expression Of
opinion by individual farmers, agricultural
societies and Oranges regarding the influence
Of the tariff upon agricultural industry and
the changes in the tariff desired by farmers.
The result was the receipt Of several thou
sand letters, whichs.the Tribune submitted to
committee consisting Of Hon. Warner
Miller, Of New York, chairman; Cyrus c.
Carpenter, John T. Rich, w. G. Morse, Ed
ward Burrough, ]. o. Lyman, w. NJ. Grosr
venor, Hon. J. H. Hale, Connecticut, and
Hon JameslW ilson, of Iowa.
This committee WINS charged with the
work of making up the concensus Of the farm
ers Of the country, as shown by these letters
Its report, signed by all except Messrs Hale
and Wilson--the former having, however,
approved all the findings on which the docu-
ment is based and the latter being beyond
reach in Texas or Mexico--was published in
the Tribune to-day. 1t is accompanied by
the following pet ion, which succinctly en-
bodies the findings of the committee, and
which farmers and farmers organizations,
who favor its proposition, are requested to
sign and transmit to congress, or to the
Tribune for forwarding:
ITO the Speaker of the House Of Representa-
tives:
"The undersigned respectfully pray that
agriculture may be more effectually pro-
tected by preventing fraudulent importa-
lions of cattle on pretense that they are for
breeding only;
''By duty of twenty cents per bushel on
barley, with proper tionate increase of duty
on malt;
''By duties of twenty-five cents per bushel
on potatoes and onions, So per hundred on
cabbage, So per ton on hay, ten cents per
pound on hops, twenty per cent on beans
and peas, five cents per dozen on eggs thirty
per cent. ON fowls and poultry and ON 'vege-
tables in their natural state or in salt or
brine, not otherwise provided for with no
removal or reduction of duties ON market
garden products now dutiable;
''By such increased duties on flax and ON
linen goods as will effectually encourage
preparation of fiber and manufacture Of
goods;
s'By abolishing all duties on sugar, with
bounty to home producers;
''By preventing imports of leaf tobacco
suitable for wrappers at the duty imposed on
other leaf tobacco, and repeating all internal
taxes on tobacco;
"By restoring to wool growing the sub
stantial protection enjoyed under the
tariff of 1867, so modified as to meet the
later forms Of foreign competition and of
evasion"
The report proper is quite long, giving the
statistics of farm and manufacturing growth
in the United States during the past fifteen
years, to show that protection has brought
immigration, and with it home market for
agricultural products which permitted vast
farm development, etc. With scarcely an
exception the letters received point out that
the tariff should have directly defended the
industry of farmers in ways in which it has
not. 1t should shield them as completely as
any branch of manufacture, from the spas
modic and destructive competition which the
cheapness and degradation of labor in some
other lands permit. But the barrier around
farming industry, at all points relatively
low, has many gaps, partly from early over
sight and partly from mistaken revision
within the past few years.
Even at this hour some important pro
ducts of American farms are undersold in
many of our cities and towns by the products
of illpaid or unpaid labor Onions from
Spain and Egypt appear in markets as far
west as CHICAGO. Tobacco raised by coolies
in Sumatra lessons the reward of American
growers. Wool clipped by slaves, by con-
victs, or by creatures scarcely less degraded,
stops wool growing by an army of American
farmers and sends 100000 sheep to the
slaughter. Potatoes and cabbages by the
cargo, from places where women work daily
in the fields, come hitherl as ballast, with
eggs by the shipload from Holland cattle
from Mexico and barley from Canada
No less than 279 Of the 1926 farmers who
refer at all to the duties on sugar. ask the
abolition of those duties The producers of
tobacco do not ask any increase of duties,
but they earnestly desire that the fraudulent
importation of coolfe-grown tobacco, by
which their industry has been rendered UNI
profitable, may be stopped by more precise
language in defining the classes to which ex-
isting duties were meant to apply. The re-
port then gives the statistics OF the wool in
dustry of the country, as affected by the
tariff, and continues:
1.-THE wool growers, who appeal to other
farmers throughout the country, show that
the prostration of their industry is immi-
nent; that they number more than one
million, and il forced to give up wool grow
ing must devote their land to other branches
of agriculture, in which competition is al
ready severe enough; that the prostration Of
the manufacture would also deprive Amer
lean farmers of a considerable part of their
home markets, and that, with wooden goods
worn by nins-tenths Of the people as cheap
now as in any other country, quality consid-
cred, the consumers have only to pay higher
prices II the enormous consumption OF this
country is to be supplied wholly or in part
by foreign looms They therefore ask
united effort os ~ farmers to obtain from
congress; snca action that this industry may
receive 4 5sga ltial protection enjoyed
nnie,. ~ 1S67