The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-11-23
THE GOAL OF PROTECTION.

In less than twenty years the United States
will .have no food to export. Therefore it is
England's policy to develop the farming re-
sources of Canada.-Sir Lyon Pgagtdir
Is 1t coming to that? Is il true that in two
decades of years more the United States will
have no breadstuffs to export? And what is
going to bring about this great change? Can it
be anything else except that the manufactures
of the United States will be so extensive that
the employees Of those factories will consume
all that our country raises? Is that what is
going to be the result from such bills as the
MCKINLEY bill? If that is true, or if it approxi
mates to the truth, is it possible that the pro-
tect1ve system is altogether wrong?- Tribune.
Nor. %.
To each of these questions we answer
yes; and especially to the last one, we
answer yes, most emphatically; and say
that the affirmative answer to the first five
is conclusive proof to any rational being
that 1.-The protective system is altoqcther
wrong"
This answer is altogether incomprehen-
slble to protectionist, because of mis- lack
of some element of the reasoning faculty,
and because he refuses ever to pay any at
tention to historical fact.
1t Is true that in about two decades, or
less, the United States will have no sur
plus product OF agriculture to export This
Will not be because of any extraordinary
development of manufacturing industry,
however, but because of the destruction of
part of the farming industry.
At the present time one-fourth of the
product of the farms of this country can
not be consumed here. 1t is a surplus that
must be exported or burnt for fuel This
surplus can be paid for only in imports, and
every dollars worth of farm goods that
goes out will bring in dollars worth of
foreign goods. To keep out that import
will deprive the farmer of the reward for
his labor; to tax that import will lessen the
reward he receives for his labor The
MCKINLEY bill is intended to prevent the
payment for farm products from entering
this country. If it succeeds, two million
farm hands, who produce the present farm
surplus, must quit farming and work for
wages in protected mills. The goods the
farmer receives for his surplus are his pay;
he earns them by raising a surplus and
exchanging it for these goods; these goods
are thus the product of his own labor-he
really makes them on his farm by raising
surplus and exchanging the surplus for
them. What he thus receives deprives no
one of labor; it furnishes labor to the farmer
just IS truly as if he made the imports on
his farm
Our exports are mainly agricultural. In
1881, the value of farm products exported
was s730, 1874, 943, which had diminished by
1888 to $500. ,0S6. The taxation of the
farmers by confscating one-third of the
pay they received for their surplus is hav-
ing its result, the result intended by the
MCKINLEY bill; the farmers are being
driven off their farms into mills. The ex-
port Of manufactures in 1881 was
So9,2ls,3S0; by 1888 it had increased to
Sl3O ,0e7. That is, while the exports of
the farmers have decreased 81 per cent.
the exports Of manufactures have increased
40 per cent In 1881, the agricultural ex-
ports were So per cent. of the total exports
from this country; and in 1883, they had de-
creased to as per cent. of the total. In
1881 the export of manufactures was but 9
per cent Of the total export, and in 1855 it
had increased to 10 per cent of the total.
In other words, agricultural exports lost 10
per cent in the total, and manufactured ex-
ports gained 10 per cent in the total Here,
then, in facts so plain that he who runs