The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1891-04-29
The Home Market.

Tile Home Market.
Baltimore sun.
The "home market" fallacy Ia q
favorite one with the protectionist
for the reason that it requires some
little knowledge of facts and some
capacity for reflection to see how
delusive it is. In the old days, be.
fore steam and electricity. had
brought all markets into easy com
munication with each other, it was
less fallacy than 1t is now
Time was when mud roads. un-
bridged rivers and steep grades iso-
lated manufacturing as well as other
communities 1t was great thing
then for the local farmer to have u
factory, workshop or furnace
near his fields, for the reason that
the imperfect transportation facili-
ties gave him a sort of monopoly.
The greater the number of consum-
ers brought into his neighborhood
by manufacturing industries the bet
ter it was for him, inasmuch as the
for his grain, pork, beef,
poultry, butter and eggs was there
by greatly increased, and he put up
his prices accordingly. The cost OF
hauling supplies from a distance
put the consumer at his mercy.
The "market right at his door" was
therefore extremely Important
Without it farm produce would rot
on the farm or sell at very low
prices by reason of the expense in
Cured in hauling it some hundreds
of miles over bal roads. Those
times-sixty years ago-were the
halcyon days of the ''home market
theory of protection.
The building of railroads altered
the situation completely. 1t des-
troyed the local farmers monopoly
by putting it into the power Of the
nonfarming classes to get their sup
plies at distance it the home prices
did not suit. 1t subjected the far
mers in all sections of the country
to the necessity of lowering their
prices to suit the competition of that
section which produced most cheap.
ly. The railroads to day, for ex-
ample, bring grain from Dakota to
Boston, and this Dakota grain un-
dersells the grain grown in the re-
gion within eight or ten miles of
Boston. The "home market" is
worthless to the Boston farmer for
the reason that cheap transpor alton
subjects it to invasion by farm pro-
duce from points thousands of miles
distant, no multiplication of factories
in Boston can improve the Boston
market from the agriculturist's
point of view. On the contrary.
the more numerous the industries
the greater the importation of Wes-
tern grain, fruits, &C., and the more
cheaply that importation can be
conducted. Accordingly, the Sec
ton of the country where farms are
being abandoned most by their own.
ers is New England, where manu-.
featuring industries are most num-
erous.
The report of the Massachusetts
bureau OF statistics is eloquent upon
this point. The largest number of
farms being abandoned in any single
Massachusetts county, says the re-
port, is found in Worcester county.
In 3S towns of Worcester are 344
abandoned farms, 1877 of them hav-
ing buildings. The towns in which
most farms were abandoned are
classed by the statistics as manufac-
turing towns. The manufacturing
towns reporting abandoned farms
number 20, with n population in
1855 of 81, $40, in 1865 of 55,9I6, in
1890 of S3,26S. The agricultural
towns reporting abandoned farms
number ID, with population in
1855 of 1859 in 1865 of 1851, Ia
1890 of 1928. What is here term
ed manufacturing town" is a
town, in which the value of manu-
features exceeds the value of agri-
cultural products. The manufac-
turing towns gained in the thirty
i've years under review, says the
report, 6l.sl per cent. In population,
while the agricultural towns lost
1875 per cent. Two-thirds of the
towns containing abandoned farms
are not, it appears, remote districts,
tar removed from the sound of the
factory steam whistle, but actually
manufacturing towns" in the stric,
sense of the word-the real sshoms
markets" of which campaign orators
tell us so much. Where the farmer
should thrive most, according t.
protectionist logic, there it is tina
npriculture is in m state of decadence