The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1890-12-06
STUBBORN FACTS FOR FARMERS.
Without Protective Tariff Indian Wheat Will
Soon Usurp Our Market.

Editor Country Gentleman: In an adj
dress before the New Jersey Board of
Agriculture, and published in Sixteenth
Annual Report, J. D. Taylor made some
interesting statements in figures, show
ing the difference between comparative
ly new nation and one which has gradu-
ally become "the creditor nation of the
world" After stating some facts re-
lative to prices and markets in this
country many years or half a century or
more ago, and which statements old men
will now corroboratc, he remarked in
substance that, when boy, hundreds
and thousands of barrels of apples lay
rotting in orchards for want of a market;
cow was bought for ONLY seven or eight
dollars, and men worked for thirty cents
day; butter was seven or eight cents a
pound, and eggs four cents dozen. He
had himself worked for a quarter OF
dollar a day, and had had to take an
order for it, for there was no money.
The women dressed i'll sunbonnets and
calico dresses, aud all worked from five
o'clock in the morning until seven or
eight at night.
Matters changed. In 1854, the farmers
bought almost more than they sold, and
gold and silver were shipped across the
sea, and at the end of the year we had
sixty million dollars less. We took out
n 00n
600 of gold, but when the war opened in
1861 there was not rs millions of it in the
United States; more Ethan 500 millions
had gone to pay the balance of trade.
Now, business men (not pollticians) say
that England has always the balance
against her. This is true. The reports
show that for forty or fifty years the bal
ance of trade has been against England,
and that it has not broken England up,
and that therefo1e the balance of trade
against US will not break the United Sta
ties. This seems like strong argument,
almost unahswerable.
But the cases are very unlike. That
which wll break the United States will
not break England. This is the reason
we cannot cope with England in this
direction. When England loses $3.50,
900, 900 every year because she buys more
merchandise than she sells, she can stand
il, zoe cannot. 1t Is because England is
the creditor nation of the world She
owns our state bonds, and our county
bonds, our railroad bonds, our school
bonds-mi lions worth. She owns the
bonds of Germany and France, and Rus
STA and Turkey and Spain-she is the
trade is three hundred millions against
| her. what need she care, for she has six
hundred million dollars coming in the
shape Of interest on her moneys each
year on the money she has loaned
throughout the world? England was
| wise enough to become the creditor ma
ton of the world, and accumulate this
great wealth, before she passed the first
free trade measure. She gathered her
riches through protective laws. and then
she began to cope with other countries
A few years ago, they grew almost no
| wheat in India, but they now have y
million acres under cultivation, and last
year they produced $50 million bushels
of wheat-almost as much as the whole
produced in the entire United States.
Aud now England is building railroads
leading from India to London, SO far as
they can 60. Fourteen thousand miles
of railroad are building, to be paid for
by the British government, to enable the
people of England to produce their wheat
cheaper; and in India, where labor is only
seven or eight cents day, and where
people live on rice and millet, two hun
dred million people will raise all the
wheat the world will want to consume.
If they increase as they have done, in
few years they can land wheat at thirty
five cents on the American shore, How
can we then get dollar a bushel for our
wheat? OLD FARMER.