St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-10-07
A TARIFF ARGDMENT.

Ii Is q voorhees, tarId reform cam
paign, yet none the less effective. that
is being conducted in the New England
states. We allude to the rapid ,iep0pu-
lation of the section which is the native
heath of the protective system, and
W hose statesmen have uniformly con-
tended that high tariff was absolutely
necessary for the protection of Ameri-
can industries. IT there is any place on
the face of the globe where the protect
i've system has had fair trial, and un-
der the most favorable conditions, it is
New England. And yet, what are the
rusults? The New England manu-
faeturers ara now urging the re-
mOval Of duties from raw material as
their only salvation. They discover that
in building tariff wall to shut out
foreign competition they have enclosed
themselves in barren field where no
friendly hand can rescue them from the
peril of bankruptcy until hole be made
in the wall Whicn they nave built. But,
worse than that. the once thrifty farm
ing classes of New England have been
forced into exile by this same protective
/ system; because, under its operation,
the New England farmers have found it
more profitable to abandon their lands
than to attempt to cultivate them. Vast
areas of country in the New England
states have been wholly deserted, and
hills and valleys that once blOSSOmed as
the rose ana yielded their fruitful har-
vests are now a desert waste. What a
change has the protective system
wrought in the New England states.
The country that was quarter
of a century ago so richly embel-
liShed by the enterprise of man, the
home of all that art could yield or nat
ure could decree is now an uneulti-
waited wild. 1t has come to pass that
the New England farmer thinks him.
! self lucky if he can gather together
means enough to get out of the coun-
try. The process of depOpulating their
country has been going on so rapidly
within the last decade the authorities of
several New England states have found
it necessary TO establish immigration
bureaus, and are actually Offering in
dueements to immigrants in the way of
tax exemptions that the new Western
country never thought of. Improved
farms in the New England states are
to-day selling for less than the govern
ment lands in the West; and that, too,
with the promise from the state to the
purchaser that he shall not be taxed on
his lands for term Of years. This
picture of New England desOlation is
not whit Overdrawn, for the statistics
are there to prove ii, and one has but to
visit the rural districts of Vermont,
New Hampshire and other New En-
gland states to find confirmation in
the deplorable condition of the farming
interests of that section.
Some may view it as retributive JUS
tice to New England for its responsible
ity in fastening upon the country a
tariff system that must ultimately prove
ruinous 10 every industry in this coun-
try, and more particularly to the agri-
cultural interests. But New England
is only suffering from an aggravated
! form of the same affection which has
befallen the agricultural interests in
| every Othe section of the country. The
| agricultural industry is languishing
everywhere, and will continue to Ian
/ guish as long as this ubiquitous tariff
/ policy is adhered to. 1t is merely mat
ter of simple arithmetic to demonstrate
it. Any industrial enterprise which
| pays out more than it takes in must
reach the stage of bankruptcy sooner or
later. Go to the farmers here in
/ the West. and to the farmers
! and planters in the South, and
they will tell you the same story that
the New England farmer will tell you
! that it costs them more to run their
farms than their farm products amount
/ TO. Why? Because the effect of the ex-
listing protective tariff is to increase the
cost of everything they are compelled
TO buy and TO lower the price of every
thing they have to sell. There isn't
! farmer in Minnesota but knows this to
be a fact, and yet great many of them
are so blinded by political prejudice
that they go right ahead fastening the
chains of poverty upon themselves, just
as the New England farmers have been
doing for the last twenty years. Isn't
it about time that the farmers of the
West were studying the New England
situation for their own profit?