Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1890-09-18

arc from % 10 lUU per cent l1Sler IMAM
these paid in Great Britain, as has been
frequently shown in this Chamber and
elsewhere.
The farmer may we'll reflect that if he
has been paying higher prices for his
machinery, his clothing, and his house
hold goods than he would have paid for
these things il imported (as he rarely does
pay, quality considered), he has been
paying it in the form of higher wages to
the operative, and he should remember
that the operative is his best customer
Ii he will investigate he will soon see
that oven if the manufacturer in the
United States has grown rich SO has the
manufacturer in England and other for
elgn lands. He is as surely paying a
profit to the manufacturer when he buys
rocket-knlfe OF foreign manufacture as
when he buys one in Connecticut; more
surely,for the Connecticut manufacturers
of cutlery have some of them been fail
ing, but no one has been telling us of
line. When he buys the Er glish or
German knife, howe yer, he has the satis-
faction, If it be a satisfaction, of knowing
that he is paying very low wages to a
workman abroad instead of very high
Il
He Is thus diminishing demand for his
tive he feeds entirely and partly clothes
him. The foreign workman he may feed
in ratio of tea-spoonful of dough to
all! And il he fed the foreigner alto
gether hs would find he consumed much
less of such food as the American work.
LA n consumes.
Great is tue effort made by free traders
because as is claimed. the manufacture
ers grow rich. The effort is an insult to
the farmer. Its force, if it had any,
would lie in it's direct appeal to envy. 1t
will not work. Farmers know, us do
others, that each man is struggling to
better his condition, and that very few,
indeed, would let riches 60 if within hon.
est reach. But that great fortunes in
this country have come with very few
exceptions from other sources than manu-
featuring has been shown so frequently
that I need not dwell on that fact now.
OF the prosperity of the American op-
erative everybody is aware. l mean, Of
course, relatively to those of other coun-
tries. In almost every large manufactory
amounts to many times ohe proprietors
profit, which in its turn will not exceed,
even if it equal. the average profit OF his
competitor in England.
1t is the condition of well-paid labor
which is the distinctive feature of the
farmers home market, resulting, as it
does, in a scale of living worth at least
double the foreign scale.
TTnhopOily Mr. praSiIant fnn farmer
as we have SAID, raises a surplus and for
it must he seek a market abroad. I'm
happily, [ say, because, sending it. to
England, the great importing country of
bread-stuif, he must accept the price of
India wheat in Liverpool, and from this
price must pay all expenses OF freight,
dockage, and handling charges, besides
the profits exacted by several middlemen.
And although Is per cent. of his wheat
may be consumed at home. he must take
a price as if all were to go abroad, the
cheapest market always fixing the prices
of staple products. unless there be arti-
fetal prevention.
But we have seen from data presented
that in any case the farmer cannot eX-
pect to have the European market per-
manently. He will not lose it quite yet.
His wheat and corn will for some time to
come be necessary to Great Britain and
other countries. In fact certain grades
of our wheat are almost of necessity now
called for by the millers of the world. l
refer to the hard varieties grown so large.
ly in my own state. But there seems to
be no sure and permanent market for
American farm products except at home.
Yet, Mr.. President, am not drawing
picture OF discouragement. There is
good reason to expect that by the time
our farm products are not wanted abroad
they will be wanted at home.
A few days ago the senator from Della
ware MIR. Higgins quoted at consider
able length from the conclusions. care
fully arrived at, of Mr.. G. Wood Davis,
and contributed by hlm to the Forum
and the Country Gentleman.
Mr.. Davis had ascertained these facts,
namely: That between the years 1871
and 1888 an average of 3.15 acres to each
unit of population were employed in this
country to produce the cereals, potatoes,
hay, tobacco, and cotton consumed at
home, and the tobacco, cotton, and ami
NAL products exported, but that "during
the fourteen years prior to 1885 the in
crease IN cultivated area was so great
that after assigning the required 3.l5
acres to each unit of population, there
remained a surplus of 20,24S,OOO acres,
which were employed in growing pro-
ducts to glut home and foreign markets"
But Mr.. DAVIS had found further that
from 1884 the area cultivated increased
less rapidly than the population, SO that
the per capita acreage nnder general cul
tivation was reduced in four years from
sos acres to 4S9 acres, and he discovered
no tendency to large increase of new
farms, but the opposite. Taking the in
crease of population on which he reckons
and estimating the enlarged acreage
from the rate at which development has
of late years been gong on, Mr.. Davis
estimates that IN 1894 there will occur an
acreage deficit as to our home require
ments.
That would mean not only no surplus,
but remuneratlve prices.
/ ask leave of the senate to insert or
append certain tables and explanatory
matter, designed to demonstrate the
theory of Mr.. Davis.
I can not entirely agree with MI. Davis
in his anticipations. I believe his esti-