Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-09-19
HOW HE ISROBBED.
What Protection Has Done by Way
of Crushing the Farmer.
The Amount of Surplus Produce En-
ported-Decrease in Agricultural
Wealth Year by Year-MorIgaged
harms Keeping the Farmer Poor.


but the interest of the few. There are
undoubtedly men who are blinded by
plausible theories and statements and
columns of figures so arranged as to mis-
lead unless carefully analysed Take
for instance, this sample of ignorance or
audacity, clipped from the Union:
Does any farmer think that the repub,
liean house acted in a spirit unfriendly to
his material interests in protecting the
produce of his field and BARNARD from
like products raised abroad, and in build
ing up home demand for what he has to
sell from skilled and prosperous mechans
les?
Yes, every farmer who has thought
anything about it has thought that the
republican house. and the republican
senate, too, have acted in an unfriendly
spirit towards him. A home demand
from skilled and prosperous mechanics
Does not an unskilled mechanic consume
as much food as a sklllful one? The
Mandatory phrase is slipped 10 to make it
appear that the republican scheme of tax
alton is one that will make the American
mechanic both skilled and prosperous
Ii means that or it means absolutely noth-
ing. And whatever it means it is nom
sense.
The exports of the fiscal year of 1889
were 1000 600 bushels of corn, 244 600 :
600 pounds of beef. 7S3, OOO. 600
pounds of pork, bacon and hams
S5,OOO.O0O pounds of cheese. and
l5.5OO,O0O pounds of butter Add TO-
this some Sl6.OOO,OOO worth of live
stock. canned meats and other food
products of similar nature. The great
quantity of poultry exported is not in
cluded. These shipments represent some
POO. 900, 900 bushels of corn and the
amount of corn that goes into whisky is
not included
The year which ended with June last
showed the exports of flour to be Oh per
cent OF the whole wheat crop of 1889.
A quarter of all the tobacco we
raise is exported ss well as two>
thirds of all the cotton. The
farmer himself consumes perhaps one
third of the crop he raises, but this does
not include the vast amount he uses for
feeding the product which is exported
In the shape of different kinds of meat.
Now if this matter Of % r!h,pst and aour no
an the
sum taken from the whole amount raised
1t will be found that the exports of arti-
Giles for food will reach fully one third of
the whole. or cotton two thirds are re-
ported.
That is the situation. The farmer Is
continually casting about his eyes for
market, because he has too much of
surplus product. And new fields should
be opened up wherever we can find them,
as it is found that European countries are
making an endeavor to get along without
American products on account of our
discrimination against those nations.
For some time past France and Germany
have been refusing our pork; Great Brit.
ain is dong what she can to get her wheat
from India. and is looking with more ia
vor upon Australia and Russia than upon
America.
In view of all this expectation the |
Union would have the farmer believe that
the skilled and prosperous mechanic. |
through the help of congress, would be |
able to consume all the surplus of Amer |
lean products. The matter is too silly to !
seriously discuss.
SIMPLY ROBBED.
Whenever the farmer wants to know |
what the government is doing for bin he |
should turn bis attention TO his own sit |
uation and study that. He will then |
learn the truth, and the truth is that he is |
being robbed-systematically robbed I'M
der the form OF law.
Under low tariff from 1850 to 1850 |
the increase of agricultural wealth in the
United States was over 100 per cent.
Under the high tariff of 1860 to 1870, the
increase was only 80 per cent. By that
time would the farmer not have begun to
think that he was not receiving the prom
ised blessings' But under the high tariff
of 1870 to 1880 the increase was only o
per cent. In the year 1880 all the agri-
cultural wealth ia the country was $12,-
1O4,O9l, AL. Surprising it had increased
from 1860 to 1880 in the same ratio that
it had increased in the ten years from
1850 to 1850. the agricultural wealth of
the country would have been S32, 24!,-
9SI 900 in 1880 instead of the sum
named. SO that the farmers in twenty
years. under protection, lost $50 49,
OO5 ,559. Surprising again that there
were 500. 600 600 farmers in the country in
1880, the system of protection must have
cost each one of them in the twenty years
on an average over $4,000 That was
much greater sum than the average
wealth OF each farmer in that year, the I
average being only S2,421. Then be-
tween 1870 and 1887, when protection
was high, the farmers wealth increased
but per cent; when revenue tariff ex-
listed between 1850 and 1850, his increase
in wealth was 100 per cent. And what
of the years since 1880 to the present
timer In all probability the census will
show that the increase has been little or
nothing. And yet the mortgages have
increased more than 25 per cent
Is this not pitiable condition of af