New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-02-12
REPUBLICAN STATESMANSHIP And THE
FAEMERS.


1t is to be hoped that the farmer-poitlcanS
who have been so blithely buying pigs IN
poke out West are giving attention to the Bra
lillian Reciprocity Treaty, and are preparing
with hearts full of gratitude to the party whose
defeat they accomplished last November to
avail themselves Of its splendid opportunities.
When the Republican party came into power
and responsibility in 1859 it found the farmers
full of bitter complaints. They could not dis
pose OF their products. Prices were rulnously
low. and although hundreds OF thousands OF
them hal Obtained their farms for nothing under
the Republican land laws, they were still in
hard luck They sent representatives, to wash
n2tOn who told Mr. Blaine that the farmers
wanted foreign markets without losing their
hold on their own. and Mr.. Mckinley that they
wanted foreign farm products kept out Of the
United states.
They were taken at their word. Their own
view OF the causes of their troubles was ac-
ccpted as correct, and their own statement OF
the proper remedy to be adopted was accepted
as wise. Mr.. Blaine discovered that we were
admitting annually goods to the value o.
S25O. 600 600 free Of all duty from countries
which were large consumers OF foreign food
supplies but which bought practically nothing
from US. 1t seemed to him that this was not
| fair and that market should be found IN the
countries that depended so largely on us to buy
their goods for the surplus products OF our
| Western and Southern farmers. lie therefore
obtained from Congress permission to close our
pOrrs against the sugar, mOlaSScS. coffee ana
hides of the tropical lands unless they consented
to admit our products as freely as we admitted
| theirs.
| Mr.. Mckinley in studying the question how
| far the American farmer was enabled to enjoy
the advantages of his own market, aSccralncd
that farm products which could as well be
drawn from our own farms as from those of
| Canada and the Bermudas, had come into the
United States in 1889 under the low tariff then
prevailing. TO the value Of over 91,OOO.O0O
Our people had bought S7,67S,763 80 of for
egn barley, S1,132, 143 % of foreign cheese
S759.SO2 of foreign beans. S2,419, 004 81 Of
foreign eggs. S1.1O0,40S of foreign hops, and
over 81 zoo, 900 of ordinary garden vegetables
Under the new Tariff bill these imports are
subjected to heavy duties. The American farm
er is encouraged to go into their cultivation
more extensively, and thus, although he is per
mitted to buy in foreign markets more freely
than ever before-morc than 40 per cent IN
value of the total importation of 1883 being
now admitted free of duty, remission of
S65. 900 600 of practically direct taxes-and
although through Reciprocity, foreign markets
are opened to him as they never have been be-
fore. he is still protected against the encroach-
ments of near neighbors in those particular
lines of production where he has hitherto been
weak. The Brazilian trade which Mr.. Blaine
has so sklfully thrown open to him on terms
that enable him to compete with the cheap agri-
cultural labor of Russia and the Argentine,
offers him market Tomorrow for thirty mill
ions of his wheat, rye, c0tton-seed, lard and
butter canned goods and hay.
We hope the farmer.politicians are making