The times., 1890-04-04
POOLING THE FARMERS.
WHAT THE FREE TRADE PRESS AD-
vlSES THEM TO DO.

They Are Told to Abandon the Home
Market and Seek Foreign-what the
Result Would Be-Significant Words Of
jackson.
A Freet trade contemporary advises
American farmers to abandon all COM
bined efforts among themselves, and to
unite upon the single and simple expe-
dent of removing the protective duties
on the necessaries of life.
In this way it is hoped that the Ameri-
can farmers may successfully compete in
the markets of the world with the ryots
of Hindostan, who gladly work for six
cents per day of sixteen hours, feeding
ON rice and clad with napkins about their
loins. Were not the favorite objective
point of our valued contemporary so
widely known, readers might suppose
that it had selected the title as honestly
advertising its intention of ..fooling the
farmers" But the context shows a seri-
business and "a method in its madness" !"
After summing up the deplorable results
which would accrue il the unprotected
American farmer should not succeed in
his frantic attempt to undersell the Ash
attic and African six cents per day men,
it summarizes as follows:
Instead of listening to preposterous
schemes of organizing Wheat trust
against the bread winners of the world.
the manifest interest of American farm
ers is to crush the tariff fed combinations
and conspiracies for enhancing the cost
of the necessaries which they consume.
The reader will notice the peculiar en-
phasis which is placed on the "cost of
the necessaries of life," which our Free
trade contemporary wishes reduced by
removing all duties on their importation.
OF all articles of human production and
consumption, the products of the farmer,
especially breadstuffs, are pre-eminently
necessaries. No substitute exists within
our widely separated parallels of latitude
for grain, beef, pork and dairy products.
Every blow intended to destroy Protec-
tion is stab at the well being of farm
ers more than at that of any or all other
classes.
And whence these tears? Why this
ers shall be degraded to the level of the
Egyptian fellah, the Hindostan ryot or
the Chinese coolie?
Just here it is both proper and peril
nent to ask what is the importance of
the much vaunted worlds market to
American farmers? Fortunately, the
country has unimpeachable official state
ments of the proportion of our exports
of corn for the years 1849 to 1887, both
inclusive, as published in the report of
the agricultural department for 1888,
page 413.
These statements show that in the
thirty-nine years formulated the "world's
market or foreign exports averaged but
3S bushels of each 1 1000 produced, rang
ing from bushels in the 1000 in 1869 to
65 bushels in 1877. In other words, the
home and foreign markets took of each
1000 bushels thus:
Home. Foreign.
iooo ........................ wv
I6U...... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 935 65
Averages, 80 years .............. 962 50
A howl of distress was lately heaved
in the Corn exchange of this city because
labor was offering grain in the English
markets lower than our farmers could,
would, or should supply it. There was
talk Of sending committee to Europe
to investigate the fact. The range of
such committee should include Asia and
Africa, and it should take files of this
journal, even though its teachings super
sede the need of its proposed pilgrimage.
This discussion and these conditions are
not new.
Over half century ago april 20, 1924
Gen. jackson, in answer to letter dated
five days before, from l.. II. Colman, of
Virginia, warning him that his tenden-
cies toprotect American industries would
lose him his election to the presidency,
wrote as follows:
"Draw from agriculture the supera-
bundant labor, employ it in mechanism
and manufactures, thereby creating a
home market for your breadstuffs and
distributing labor to a most profitable
account, and benefit to the country will
result. Take from agriculture in the
United States six hundred thousand
men, women and children and
you at once give home mar
ket for more breadstuffs than all Europe
now furnishes us. In short, sir, we have
been too long subject to the policy of
these British merchants. 1t is true we
should become little more American
lied, and instead of feeding the paupers
and laborers of Europe, feed our own, or
else in short time, by continuing our
present policy, we shall all be paupers
ourselves"
Mr.. James Parton, the biographer of
Jackson, in his Life of Jackson" vol.
3, page 80, says: "Did Henry Clay ever
deliver speech or Horace Greeley write
an editorial more completely pervaded
with the spirit of the protective policy
than this letter of Andrew Jackson's?"
1t is interesting to note the fact that
the New England states, which never
idolized Gen. jackson, practically ac-
cepted the logic of his tea chings by es-
tablishing home market for their agri-
cultural products, while the west, which
idealized him as a myth, largely rejected
his wholesome teachings. The result is
seen i'm the cash value of farm products