The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-04-18
RELIEF FOR FARMERS.

Journal. b 80
RELIEF FOR FARMERS.
What the Mckinley Bill viii Do for the
Producers Of the Country.
A measure which does not impinee
| upon the real or fancied interest Of some
person, trade or corporation can not be
devised concerning a subject so multi
| farious in its branches as the tariff For
our own part, we would have preferred
greater reduction of internal revenue
| with either a slighter reduction Of
sugar duties than is now offered or with
direct bounties upon every pound OF
sugar produced in this country. We
still think that 1t would be wise to add
a provision to the sugar clauses Of the
| new bill, by the terms Of which it should
be decreed that where any foreign com
try shall increase its present rates Of ex-
port duties upon sugar there and then the
proposed reduction of our import duties
should not work. Without such prO-
vision it is quito possible that the new
bill may increase the revenues Of Spain
or of some of the Southern or Central
| American States, without lessening the
cost OF sugar to the consumer in this
country.
But. taken as whole. subjected to the
crude but crucial test of 1.-THE greatest
good to the greatest number" we are in.
clined to approve Of the bill. Certainly.
between it and the home-market-de-
stroying measure projected by Mr..
Mills, of Texas, we have no hesitancy
in approving the new bill in the same
degree and with the same fervor with
which we more highly approve the con-
stitutional monarchy of Britain than the
absolutisms of Central Europe. If the
new bill be not all that we desire, it is,
at least in the direction that we desire.
1t is on the line o. protection to home
industries, and specially to the home in
dustries that most need protection.
those originating in or connected with
agriculture, to-wit:
If it be true that Liverpool fixes tho
price of wheat, as the dismalists croak.
then it is the highest policy of America
to abridge Liverpool Of the power Of
fixing that price as quickly as possible,
and most certainly every bushel Of
American wheat offered for sale in the
Liverpool market adds to Liyerpool's
price-fixing power. just as trueis it
that every bushel of wheat withheld
from Liverpool and sold at home lessons
Liverpool's price-fixing power, which at
best extends only to the surplus of our
wheat crop; no matter how falsely the
free-traders may argue. AT present one
third of the people are farmers or farm
laborers; they must supply the other
two-thirds of our home population be-
fore a pound of meat or bushel Of
grain can be sent as surplus either to
Liverpool or to Timbuctoo. How to
change the ratio Of population so as to
make, say, one-eighth instead of one
third food producers, and seven-eighths
instead of two-thirds food purchasers is
grave problem. When it is solved the
American farmer, perhaps, will be- con-
tented; certainly he ought to be, for he
will occupy the most enviable position
now flows, the tendency is toward I'M
due increase Of grain productions; land
is cheap and grain-growing is easy. II
is result Of unslilled labor, and IN
skilled labor always is the least profit
able labor. The ignorant and wretched
Indian ryot who works for four cents .
day is just as good a wheat grower a.
the American laborer who demands
forty times four cents day. We mist
diversity our farm industries just as We
have diversified our manufacturing in
dustries. The French farmer prospsrs-
He raises little grain, little crop Of
beet roots, a little crop of fax,
little crop of fruits, makes little wine,
raises a few cocoons of silk, and his
Government protects every one Of his
products from undue competition with
those of foreign nations.
The new bill moves in like direc-
ton. Last year we imported 100, 000.-
900 dozen of eggs: the importers were
the sole beneficiaries of the absence Of
tariff duty. The importations were
nasty" without being cheap" The
in the city has paid old-time
10 get them free from a nauseous taste.
The new bill places duty on eggs;
sufficient, it is to be hoped, to keep tho
foreign product out, and to encourage
our farmers to earn the price Of 16o, 0OA
300 times the price Of one dozen Of e4es
BY the simple process Of raising noee
mems in their barn lots and fewer
in their wholt fields. The
prices of wheat and corn, low as trey
are, would be much lower but for the
'arifi. Buenos Ayres is ready to send
,orn and Manitoba to send wheat into
he United States as soon as tariffs arc
reduced.
The new bill protects 1,s0o 900 adults.
about 5000, 900 people Of
Ill ages, in industries that consume
Without producing grain. This lessons
Liverpoors alleged price-dxing power
Between the direct and
Indirect protection furnished by the new
,ill, we shall be deceived if the farmers
re not shortly relieved Of that temper
Try depression in which the dismalists
Inter Ocean.
POLITICAL POINTERS.