Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1889-10-10
Truck Patch Economy.

The american Economist. one of tn
"Home Market" publications., endeav
ors to convince the Republic that tn
farmers of this country would be bet
ter off If they sold nothing abroad ant
relied entirely upon this single market
"The cultivator of tobacco in Missouri,
it says, following the outlook and ad
vice of his neigh Dor and our contempo
rary, "sends his crop wildly seeking
consumers four thousands miles away
and gets but $50 for his product, while
his brother in Massachusetts,, whose
home market has been developed and
sustained by century of protection
to home labor, finds ready cash
market at his own door for his tobacco
crop at S242 so per acre, or about five
| times as much as is obtained IN Mis-.
| souri,"
| While we wish to be as courteous as
possible in discussion.we are constrain-
ed to say that such absurdities as this
ought to be ineffable. In the first
place we have never advised the Mis-
souri, farmer to sell his tobacco or any
other crop abroad. We have persis-
tently advised him of his right to sell
in the highest market and to buy in
the cheapest; and we have urged him
to insist on this right as the only
means by which he can prosper. When
he sells abroad it is only because he
has no "home market" except at prices
! below the cost of reproduction. He must
either ship his surplus or leave it's
whole weight to bear down the already
too low prices at home.
If it were true that Massachusetts
had market paying S242.50 an acre
for such tobacco as we raise i'm Mis-
souri,, we would sell Massachusetts, our
en- tire crop. Why not? Massachusetts
is part of "our home market" is it
not? We are willing to pay freight on
our tobacco to reach it. If, doing this,
we still cannot get from it $2l2.5 so an
acre for our crop, or even as much as
we can get for what we send abroad,
where is the benefit of orr home mar
ket? Why should we pay taxes on our
cigar wrappers for home market in
which we cannot get $50 for our pro-
massachusetts will pay us S5O.01, it
take it. If the Economist has made
correct statement of the facts, how can
it explain the refusal of Massachusetts,,
"home market" developed and sus-
tanned by century of protection at our
expense, to take our crop?
Perhaps it will say that instead of
paying freight to Massachusetts we
must make a home market here in
Missouri. But we are perfectly will
ing to pay the freight to Massachusetts.
II is less than the freight to Europe
and Africa, where our surplus tobacco
goes. If, after we have developed and
sustained Massachusetts by a century
of protection, We are still obliged to
ship two or three thousand miles be-
yond it. and to pay freight all the way
because it either cannot or will not be
market fer us; because it cannot or
will rot support anything besides its
own little truck farmers, the whole ar
rangement is obviously fraud, and, in
its effects on us, swindle.
If our contemporary should shift
from its position that the whole United
States is the home market for Missou-
ri and should argue that Missouri
should be it's own home market, ship
ping nothing beyond its own State lines,
we would refer it to the census of 1880
Compendium, page 928), from which
it will will learn that und er high taxes
for the benefit of the Northeast, the
number of manufacturing establish
ments in Missouri decreased from II =
81 in 1870 to s ,592 in 1SSO-a loss to IS
in 10 years of "protection" of 3,279
establishments whose
operatives might otherwise have re-
manned here to chew our tobacco and
save us freight we are now obliged to
pay to get it to free trade markets |
where there are unprotected working |
who men can afford to buy it,even after
freight and all charges have been add |
ed to the price we could get for it in
Missouri or Massachusetts.
We sell in Missouri every scrap of |
Missouri tobacco that can be sold here, |
but if Massachusetts will pay $242.50
an acre for our crop it shall have every |
scrap we raise. We will stop chewing |
and smoking in order to sell it all we
have. If it will not; ifit will not pay |
us as much as England will with freight
and other charges in its favor, the eb-
surdity of the lone Market "idea is |
apparent.
1t is apparent at any rate. If it
were better to trade only i'm one mar
ket and that market at home, all trade
would stop, or at best be confined
within a limit of few miles from the
point of production. Anyone who be-
lieves that trade should be taxed out
is highly illogical if he does not also :
lieve. as the Economist does, that it
should be taxed in, but the human
mind never conceived greater econ
omic absurdity than this, that all trade
should be localized; that producers
should not ship their surplus; and that
production should be restricted to the
consuming power ofthe neighborhood.
Fie upon such Truck Patch politics.
Republic.