Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-08-12
FOR CONGRESS. SIXTH DISTRICT
REEL b. TERRY, of Fresno.
Fallacious Arguments Concerning
Home Markets.

Eal10cf0us Arguments Concerning
Home Markets.
Until the Republican party demone-
tized silver in 1873 the California farmer
got splendid prices for his wheat, and
the mining as we'll as the farming inter-
ests of the United States were in most
prosperous condition. Silver was de-
monetized in response to demand made
by Change in London and reinforced by
the Republican gold bugs in Wall street,
New York. Wheat up to that time sold
for twice what it does now, and silver
was struck down in order to decrease its
purchasing price as bullion, in which
medium the English grain merchant
pays for the wheat grown by the ryots Of
India.
Yet this same Republican, whose
party demonetized silver, thus building
up in India prodigious wheat output
paid for in deprecated silver, presumes
to talk to the farmer about the necessity
of home market for his grain.
The competition which the American
farmer has to meet in the European
market, and which, it is said, is becom-
ing sharper each year, serves as text
for many q protection sermon. We
raise now more agricultural products
than we can sell; and when the Indian
wheat fields are fully developed it will be
impossible for US to hold our own in the
English market against the cheaply
grown wheat of India. Hence, so it is
said, we should build up a "Home
Market" so that we may be absolutely
Independent of foreign nations. How
are eto do this? Why we must stimu-
late and encourage manufactures; and
as the protective tariff does this, we
must maintain the tariff.
Unfortunately there are some serious
difficulties which the advocates of this
theory invariably overlook. In the first
place we do not increase our power to
consume simply by increasing our man.
ufactures. A mill hand eats no more
than farm hand; the one is no more a
consumer than the other. 1t seems to
be forgotten that the farmer must eat
the fact that he produces what he con-
sumes does not make him any less
consumer.
So if every farmer in America were
driven into the factories, and if all our
immigrants were coralled in the factory
town, our home market would not be in
creased q whit. Manufacturing estab-
lishments, unless they bring into the
country men that were not here before,
do not enlarge the home market, any
more than the increase in the number of
farms by the subdivision of already ex-
listing farms would do. 1t is folly to talk
about extending our home market by
such means.
But we cannot limit production. If
one-third or one-half of the farmers were
to become mechanics, we should prob
ably get rid of our surplus of farm pro.
ducts. There would be no more of these
products consumed, but there would be
less produced.
Here, however, there is another i'm
puItdub ldCt tldb ID lclb OuL VI Lll6 account.
To whom would our manufacturers sell
their wares? OF course we are shut up
to our own market-that is the SUPPOSE
ton. As it is now we have a surplus of
manufactured goods--or would have if
our manufacturers didn't curtail their
production by shutting down for three or
four months each year. And with the
number of farmers decreased by third
or half, and the number of manu-
facturers increased in the same proper
ton, the surplus would be still larger.
The agricultural implement men would
have hard time; many of them
would be thrown out of busi-
ness. Even if we could main
tain the new proportion between farm
and factory-and we could not, for the
men would be forced back to the land by
the financial distress in the towns-our
condition would not be improved. Nay,
it would be made worse. For the farmer
can always get living out of his land,
while the mechanic must have employ