Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1890-02-20
cveroroducticn.


manent prohibitive protection explain
that the cause Of low prices for farm
products is overproduction-the RAPID
extension of cultivated lands.
How does the explanation DO the
farmer any good and in what respect
does it alter the inequality OF burdens!
The cause of the downward tendency
of prices for manufactured goods is al
so everproduction-the extension all
over the commercial world Of manufac-
tured products.
Overproduction is a deceiving word.
1t implies that more is produced than
can be consumed. In practice it means
only that more is produced than the
consumers are able to pay for under ex-
istins conditions. 1t means that some
condition exists which prevents con-
suming markets from buying all that
thew would like to have. For instance.
if protective tariffs impede the impor-
ta,ion of American wheat and meats In
continental Europe the people OF those
countries, many Of them starving and
most of them insufficiently fed, are I'M
able to consume and large surplus
product is thrown back upon the Amer
lean market to force down prices at
home still further. If tariff in Ameri-
ca enable manufacturers to limit their
pooduct by combining, then labor en-
ployment is reduced, the price of the
manufactured goods, though perhaps
lower than twenty years ago, is kept
higher thru it should be under the gen.
era! lowering Of the cost of production,
and both farmers and iaborers are fore
ed into on artifcially disadvantageous
situation.
Cheap production and low prices are
not an evil of themselves except when
the reduction SO effects debtor classes
that the liquidation of money debts in
commodities at low prices when the
debts we're contracted III a high price
era may extend difficulties over a large
number of people.
Cheap production and low prices are
an evil when the industry employing a
majority Of people Is left, not only to
bear the full effect of cheapness, but to
contend against contraction of their
markets in other countries; and when
at the same time the producers Of goods
which the chief industry has to buy are
artifcially permitted to hold up prices.
The Chicago Tribune has printed an
editorial telling farmers that oyerpro-
ducticn is the only trouble with them.
But Mr.. Madill in Washington spoke
his individual, rot his editorial, opinion
and said that there is no sense in talk
Ing about free tobacco and whlskey
while clothing and sugar are taxed.
War taxes, he says, must be taken from
the necessaries and the promises Of tar
iff revision made to the farmers by the
republicans must be kept or the present
majority will be wiped out. Mr.. Me-
dill finds necessity for a lame defence
of protection through his paber, but his
personal Judgment is that Of decided
tariff rcformer. No western man of
penetrating intellect can possibly have
any other private judgment. 1t is non.
sense to be talking about taxing nec.s-
saries and It is also nonsense to talk
about overproduction on the farms un-
less the working Of overproduction all
along the line is explained. Farmers
were deceived by one sided arguments
in 1888, but they know too many things
this year to be satisfied with half truths
Every day the mail brings to The Times
letters from farmers and other persons
in farming communities expressing de-
termination to vote against Mckinley
protection at the first opportunity.
Most of the letters are from republicans.
Democrats voted against it before. No
doubt Mr.. Medill gets letters of the
same tenor, and when he lmplores the
republican to take the tariff out of poll
ties he is influenced by apprehension
over republican supremepcy in the
northwest. After Blaiue's letters from
Europe in 1888 and the republican
campaign Of that year, it is hard to see
how that party can get the tariff out of
politics. 1t would be entertaining to
observe the effort, with Mckinley at
the head Of the ways and means COM
miftoo