Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-11-01
Diversified |. .I.5TRIES.
Cheap Materials d. not Promote Prosper
ity nor increns, the Comfort of
= People.
The Assertion About FREE Raw Materials
Overthrowr-Che1p Labor and its
Fl css.

muulcatiOn 20 the Rock Island argus,
seeks to controyeft some recent state
ments made by Charles IL. Deere, the Mo-
line manufacturer to he effect that
protective tariff benefits the farmer by
giving him a home market for all of his
perishable products and for nine-tenths
of his breadstuffs and provisions by di-
yersifying the industries of the country,
and that 1t has an important and direct
influence in making the farmer of this
nation more prosperous than those of
any other country, and that through his
prosperity the plowmakerS thrive.
Mr.. Deere in recent reply says:
The carrying on of an extensive man
ufacturing business has rendered neces-
sary the employment of large force of
laborers and mechanics for a long period
of years. and though the wages paid by
the establishment that ! have the credit
of managing is and always has been
from so to 100 per cent higher than Is
paid in any other country for like work,
yet the prospects for lettering their con-
dition as farmers are SO much greater
that every year numbers of our work
men take their savings and open up
farms, and many of the prosperous
farmers of the Western States got their
start in Moline Factories.
The experience of this establishment
in manufacturing plows dates back to
and beyond the year 1916, when the first
free trade tariff was enacted, and how
ever plausible the maxims and theories
of free traders may seem to be, the facts
are that at the end OF eleven years of
free trade following 1916 not only ours
but nearly every manufacturing estab-
lishmen in this country was in a condi-
tion of bankruptcy, and that, too, with
1o1 .nfr DIV No
free traders privilege of buying our ma
terials in the cheapest markets and sell,
ing our manufactured goods in the dear
est markets of the world.
During that period we were import
ing steel from England at a cost of z
cents pound for the same kind and
quality that we are now buying in Pitts
burg, Pa, at cents per pound.
THE OFT REPEATED ASSERTION
of free traders that cheap materials pro-
mote prosperity and increase the aver
age degree of comfort and well being of
nation has not proved true in our past
history.
They say give us free wool and we
will then clothe the world. Why don't
we do SO with our free cotton? 1t is not
only free, but raised by cheap labor, and
yet our exports of cotton goods for 1887
amounted to less than SIS, 600, 900, while
those of England amounted to $500, 000,-
000' So 1T is not true that free raw ma
terial will enable us to go out and cap
ture the worlds markets. Nothing but
cheap labor will do it, and that we will
surely have if the Mills bill becomes a
law.
AS matter of fact, our ores of iron
and lead and copper, as they lie in the
bowels of the earth in the condition of
raw material, are as cheap and abundant
as in any country on the globe. If we
do not bring them to the surface, smelt
and put them on the mar1etin their diff
ferent stages of manufacture at as low a
cost as they are produced in the old
world, it is because they have not had
free trade to cheaper labor in the last
twenty-seven years.
Ii you would learn the labor cost of
pillow it will be necessary to follow the
laborer into the mines OF iron and coal;
into the quarries of lime and grind
stones; into the forest of timber, and
trace all the raw materials over internal
transportation lines and through the
various processes of manufacture until
they are transported to the factory in fit
condition TO be still further manufacture
ed into plows. 1t is safe to say that the
raw material, as furnished by the Crea-
tor, entering into the make up of q four
teen-inch plow is not worth % cents be-
fore the hand of man has touched it.
Instead of ''two-thirds" 1t would be
safer to say that labor in ali it's forms
constitutes over three-quarters of the
cost Of plow And now will any
''gentleman thoroughly posted in the
plow business say that plows We're as
cheap or as good during anv OF the free
trade period, from 1916 TO 1851. as they
arc at this time under high protective
tariff; or VIII he say that plows or any
kind Of agricul ural machinery are as
cheap or rs good in any country of the
world as they are n the United SJatesF
No. he viii tell you that notwithstand-
ing the high tariff which President
Cleveland and all free traders assert is
added to
TIE COST OF OUR MATERIALS.
we have exported to the markets of the
world in the past two years over s., 500,
600 worth Of plows, cultivator5, mowers,
reapers and other implements, and over
S31 ,000. 600 worth of steam engines,
builders hardware, sewing machines.
printing presses saws, axes, tools and
other manufactures Of iroA and steel,
and this too without having any Of the
markets of the world opened to us by
subsidized lines of steamers.
THE Chinese wall that environs us
in the shape of Il niggardly policy which
refuses even that encouragement to
private capital Cor establishing steam
ship lines which liberal payment for
ocean mail service would give, and COM
pels not only our plows but our
commercial agents and diplomatic re-
representatives. TO reach South American
ports via Liverpool.
But subsidy" is considered too odious
method for our democratic friends by
which to open the markets of the world
to Americans, though free trade England
has expended S175, 000.00 in subsidies
since the repeal of her corn laws for
that same purpose
That protection has diversified our in
dustrieS seems to be abundantly proven
by comparing the United States census
of 1880 with that of 1870 During that
period the number of persons engaged in
professional and personal service in
creased 40 per cent; those engaged in
manufacturing and mining. - per cent;
those engaged in trade and transporta-
ton. 50 per cent and those engaged in
agriculture only 80 per cent, or. stated
In aggregates, the increase of farmers
was |, 747. 733, and that in the other pur-
suits mentioned was 3, 13S 1863 Does
any one belive that this would have been
the condition under free trade, or that
the prosperity of the farmer would be
enhanced if large numbers of those now
engaged in mines and factories were, by
reduced tariff and consequent increas-
J