Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-04-10
Bel1ttuttt Chronicle.
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1890.
FACTS FOR FARMERS.


New York Press
The current number of the Anertcdn
DaiTyman takes up the question eff ag-
rieultural depression, and offers six rem
the destruction of trading in politics,
the legal prohibition of speculative gam
bling in the necessaries of life, this article
will not deal. But The Press has some
thing to say about the other four, One
of these is the admission of manu-
factured products free of duty; an
other, the admission of manufacturers
raw material free; third, the advance
ment of our shipping interests by ad-
mitting sbip-builders' material free, and
fourth, the restriction of immigration.
There is not a product of the farm y
says the Dai1ymdn, "but what the surplus
over and above home consumption has
to be sold in the open markets of the
world where there is no tariff to protect
their product, and everything the farmer
buys, if an imported article, is taxed to
death with heavy import duty, and, if
home manufacture, is equally taxed from
the fact that the manufacturers of
these home products put every dollar
that they possibly can into the price Of
same, as they know that no foreigner
can come in to compete with them"
Everything the farmer buys is taxed
to death is an assertion that price lists
of American and English and the Amer
lean tariff list show to be not warrant
ed by the facts. A list of things
the farmer wants would be a long one,
but The Press printed such a list on
August 6, 1888, and showed that the
principal articles in it are as cheap here
as in England because of the develop
ment of home manufacture and home
supply by protective duties. The higher
the duty, or the greater the alleged tax,
the greater the domestic production and
the cheaper the article. In further proof
of this The Press has printed from time
to time the annual statistics of the i'm
ports of Canada, showing that that coun-
try buys 81 per cent. of its brass goods,
80 per cent of its copper goods, "a per
cent. of its cordage, 8S per cent. of its
ginghams, 65 per cent. of its glass, SO
per cent. of its rubber, 54 per cent. of its
carpets, 92 per cent. of its manufacturers
of wood, 81 per cent. of its tinware, and
all of its binding attachments, grain
drills, hay, straw and spading forks,
harrows, haryesters, moving machines,
rakes and reapers, 81 per cent of its
hoes, "a per cent of its plows, 81 per
cent. of its scythes and 63 per cent of
its spades and shovels from the United
States. These figures, even allowing for
export discounts, show that protection
has made everything that the farmer
buys cheaper than it would be if the
oOulCCo VI supply huA hOe
been developed by protection.
Nor does the Dairyman tell us how
the American farmer could compete sue
cessfully in foreign markets with the
n-cents a day labor of India's wheat
regions. That cheap labor and the i'm
possibility of competing with it would
tell the farmer, if his own common sense
did not, that it was time for him to study
the question of diversifying his crops.
What new crops could he raise instead
of old ones, of which there was surplus
for exports which foreign markets did
not want? Why, here are crops which
home markets do want as their raw ma
terials. Crops like flax, hemp, jute,
sugar beets, special breeds of wool,
special varieties of cotton; and the Amer-
lean Dairyman crying for free raw ma
| terials so that the farmer won't be able
to raise them! The manufacturer who
gets raw materials can stand free trade
in products better than the farmer can;
but if he can't what will he do? Shut
up his factory and go to farming, rails
ing at least his own provisions, and
to that extent competing with the
farmer And every factory or work
shop that is shut up by free trade trans
fers people from the customers side of
the farmers balance sheet to the
competitors side, and hurts just as truly
as to transfer credit item to the debt
side.
The DGtrymGn sees this plainly
enough when it talks of immigration,
for its complaint here is that the rail
roads get land grants, "make arrange
ments with foreign nations to settle up
their lands with their surplus paupers,
and for the time being taking the pro-
ducts, of these new sections from the
producers at a mere nominal figure, and
placing them in our principal markets
in competition with the products Of the
farm that cost great deal more to
produce" Not only the railroads get
big land grants. but the immigrints can
get individual homesteads directly from
the government, and so can native born
settlers. You see how new competitors
hurt the farmer; why do yor want to
turn more of his customers ino compet-
| itors and TO drive him TO denand ON for