San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-12-17
KILLING our HOME MARKET.

this democratic congress will make
an attack upon the present tariff
during this winter, if for no other
purpose than to keep the party ranks
closed up for the campaign OF 1892.
That this action will be undertaken
in the face of the most conclusive
evidence that the present policy Of
the country has been decidly beDe-
fetal counts for nothing, as to con-
cede this fact is confession of judg-
ment against the democracy and not
to be thought of by them on the eve
of a presidential campaign. There is
bat one way for the republicans to
meet this condition of things, and
this is by ever keeping prominently
before the public the living facts in
the great controversy between PRO
lection" and Free Trade" The
rapid increase of manufacturing in
dustries in America, as compared to
such increase in Europe, is conclusive
proof that free trade policies are not
conducive to manufacturing increase,
nor can the differences in condition
between old and new world indus
trial surroundings vitiate the truth
of this conclusion, for in Germany
where industries are somewhat pro.
tected the increase is much greater
than in Great Britain, where protec.
ton is at its minimum. This in.
crease OF manufacturing indus
try, fostered by protective policies,
is the life and hope of the
American agriculturist no less than of
the commercial classes. No people
ever grew great as an agricultural
community alone. England herself
is a standing monument of this truth.
1t was only when she laid an embar-
go on foreign goods and taxed the
foreign artisans In her own cities that
she grew in manufacturing strength
and finally wrested the industrial
sceptre from France and Flanders.
Our American farmers will ever find
their best market at home, among the
non food producing classes of these
states, and not among foreign peoples
who purchase from US only by
force of necessity. The remote mar
ket is always the poor market, and
the home market for all agricultural
products is the market that should be
sought by American farmers. On &C.
count of the over production of cotton
for series of years, which has forced
prices below the point of profitable
production, the cotton states are suf-
tering a decline in prosperity which
is not general over the country, and
conclusions founded upon conditions
in these states are not correct. The
country never was more prosperous
as a whole. Farmers everywhere,
with the sole exception of cotton
raisers, fiud excellent prices for all
their produce, while the prices of
all articles of domestic consumption
are lower than ever before known.
This is directly owing to the enlarged
home market opened to American
produce through increased manufac-
turing industries, these industries
the direct result of our protective
policies. Turn the pages of any in
dustrisl journal and it's columns
abound with lists of new industries
opening, and in successful operation,
and these lists growing larger and
longer as the months go by show
that the protective policy of the re-
publican party, to which such EN-.
phssis was given in congress
last winter, has had most
beneficial effect in stimulating
the manufacturing enterprise of
this country. This increased activity
in manufacturing, through the addi'
tIonal non-food producers to whom
these added industries give employ
ment, create larger home market for
farm products OF all kinds, the very
market sought after by the intelligent
agriculturist. 1t is this market which
the free trade policy threatens to de-
stroy. 1t is this market which will
be attacked in congress this winter
by the democratic tariff deformers.
LOUISIANA democrats did not sue
coed in putting the bit in the jaws of
the rabid ants and there is every