The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-03-02
FARMERS AND THE TARIFF.

The free-trader assumes that the
farmer is his rightful property and it is
to the agriculturist that the burden of
the revenue reformer's arguments are
directed. The arguments generally
partake largely of misrepresentation
but that makes little difference to the
free-trader so long as he can hoodwink
his victim into the belief that he is
wronged and cursed by the existence of
the tariff laws. How the farmer is ben
Gifted instead of hurt by the tariff laws
is well told in an article from the Chi
cago Inter Ocean. 1t is the favorite lie
of free-traders that protection does not
protect the products of the. farmer, but
that he is compelled to pay tribute in
order that the manufacturer may enjoy
the benefits of the tariff. This is mani
testify untrue as nearly all farm products
have direct protection by import duties;
the beef and hay, the horses and cheese,
the wheat and flax, the honey and po-
tatoes, the oats and rye, the barley and
corn, the butter and vinegar, the tobac-
CO and hops, the rice and milk, the wool
and sugar which are grown or made on
the farms and plantations of the United
States are as directly protected by tariff
duties as are the iron and copper which
are taken from its mines, or the steel
and cloth that are made in its factories.
The farmer is told that the tariff duty
on imports is added to the price which
he pays for like articles of home make,
although he often buys homemade cal
leo at less, and seldom at more, than the
import duty on like quality of foreign
make; he buys his nails at less cost than
they could be imported, his reapers and
mowers, his watches and clocks, at less
price than such articles are sold for in
England or France. He now buys his
salt for less than half the price he paid
for it when it was not protected by tariff
duty. All that he buys Is cheaper than
it was under free trade, and almost all
that he buys is in a constant process of
further cheapening.
And what he sells is increased in value
by the extension of home markets as
the result of the growth of manufactur-
ing centers. The free-trader tells him
that his wheat is lower than it was a
few years ago, but forgets to ask him if
il would not be lower still were Europe
made his sole market. The effect of
home markets upon the value OF farms
may be demonstrated by few easily
understood figures: The States of the
Union and the territories of Dakota and
Washington have been classified into
four groups; in the first the area under
cultivation is 75,7IS,247 acres, and the
value is S4l.N per acre; in this group
there are 10 persons engaged in agrIcul-
ture to 81 in labor, which consumes but
does not produce what the farmer has
to sell. In the second group are Il2,-
32l ,257 acres, valued at $3055 per acre,
and here the proportion of persons en-
gagged in agriculture is AZ to So in other
industries. In the third group are 237,-
S73, 040 acres of the value of 1888 per
acre, and here there are So farmers TO
AZ persons engaged in other industries.
In the fourth group are los, 636, 796 acres,
of a value OF $5.lS per acre, and here
the farmers number " against % in 9th
er industries. The Philadelphia Press
forcibly remarks, "No candid man can
look at these figures without seeing that
the value OF farms is greatest where the
population is most largely devoted to
factories, or, as in two of the States, Cal
ifornia and Colorado, to mining, and
lowest where three-fourths of the work
ers are on FARMS"