The Forrest City times., 1891-02-27
AGRICULTURAL VALUES
SOME STATISTICS OF FARM
 MORTGAGES.
What Is the Matter with the Farmer ?- Protection as . Factor in Agricultural
 Depression-The armer the Universal

What Is the Matter with the Farmer ?-
 Protection as . Factor in Agricultural
 Depres sion-The I armer the Universal
 Burten Bearer.
 There has been much controversy of late about the amount of farm mortgages in the United States The Bdnkers' Mdg1- stne makes the statement that the farm mortgages of Kansas amount to S235,- 900, GOO; those of Indiana, S640, ,00o.o00; of Iowa, S567, ,000, 900; of Michigan, S500,- 900, 900; of Ohio, S1, ,431, 1000, 900. At 6 per cent, S200, GOO, GOO would be required to pay the interest on these mortgages, as the total in the five States is S3, 43l ,00o,- 00o The grand total of mortgage in debtednesS on farm property in only five States exceeds by Sl, SAG, 900, GOO the en- tire national debt principal and interest. as reported at the close of the fiscal year ending the 9th of last June.
 Statistics of the Agricultural Bureau of Illinois show decrease in the value of farms and farm property in tho State during the past year of Si,000, GOO. Gov ernor Campbell. who is farmer. says the depreciation of the same kind of property in Ohio, in the past ten years | aggregates SSo, 900, GOO. Hugh McCulloch, the great Republican tinancier, who was Secretary of the Treasury under two Administrations, declares that while rents in cities and large towns are steadily increasing, agriculture has be- come so depressed that good farms offer no inducements to tenants to hire them at a rental of 6 per cent on one-third of their assessed value.
 In the face of facts like these there arc still some Republicans left in the country who vainly try to make the farmer believe that he is in prosperous condition. They fight against the evi- dent fact that our system Of tariH taxa tion bears with undue weight upon the farming class. In order to escape the acknowledgement of that fact some deny that there is any agricultural depres- sion. A Republican orator has even claimed that farm mortgages, instead of being evidences of distress, are to be taken as proofs that the farmers are prosperous and happy.
 But when a man feels pain he does not need doctor to convince him that nothing hurts him. The pain makes itself felt and can be seen in the ayonized expression of the features No theories of any kind and no so-called proof can remove it for a moment from the consciousness of tho sufferer The best evidence that the farmers are less prosperous than they were is to be found, not in figures of farm mortgages, but in the fact that this lack of prosperity is universally recognized by the farmers themselves In nearly every corner of the country there is d singular and pain ful unanimity on that point.
 While the causes of this depression are several, there can be little doubt that the main cause is to be found in the pro teetive tariff system. Nothing can be clearer than the fact that the duties on farm products have, in almost every case, no effect whatever in raising the prices of those products, since we are large exporters of nearly every form Of farm produce, and our imports from Canada and other countries are so insig- niicant as to have no effect whatever in reducing prices with us It is equally clear that the boasted advantage to the farmer of protection's home market is more fanciful than real; for this same homo market pays not one cent more for farm produce than the "worn out and etTete nations of Europe" pay, and the farmer seldom even knows whether he is selling for consumption in the home market or in foreign markets,
 But protection to manufacturers and miners costs this country an enormous sum every year. Who foots protection s bills? Who but the consumer? But the farmers constitute the largest class of consumers in the land; and when we say that protection is burden upon the consumer, it is the same thing as to say that the farmers bear the greater part of this burden. Moreover. the burden which protection lays upon the great masses of the people who are neither farmers nor manufacturers and mine owners is itself largely shifted to tue farmers and laborng people. The bur den which protection lays upon the phy- sician for medicine and for implements of surgery is shifted back upon his patients In this way tho rate of ulti-
 mate profit to the non-protected classes,
 who are not able to shift their burdens
 back upon others, is largely reduced in- directly by protection, and the former does not know what struck him.
 Let not the farmer be deceived by tho insinccre rubbish about protection causing home competition to bring down | prices of manufactured articles The bul-dog tenacity with which tho protect
 ed manufacturers fight for their duties, and flock to Washington at great eX- | pcndlture of time and money to get then is a sutficent answer to such nonsense. | Our blessed tariff is levied on what a
 man spends, and the farmer spends all he
 makes. The tariff, therefore, lays q
 much greater burden proportionately | upon him than upon the prosperous citi.
 zen who lays by half of what he makes | Again. the farmer does not buy muci of those things which are not affected ir | price by the tariff. Very few buy wheat | flour. corn, pork, or beef. They all bu, | clothing, machinery, and tools, erockory | furniture. anu hundred forms of manu- | faetured articles.
 | The farmer needs only to investigate l prices in the markets Of the world [,
 discover what the tariff is doing to pro
 mote agricultural depression.
 l Free rasIc with Brazil
 l The Republican press eyeryWhcrp |,