The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1891-03-05
MILLIONS FOR THE FARM.
Protection, Reciprocity and the For.
eign Market.


1t is to be hoped that the farmer.poli.
ticians who have been so blithely buy
ing pigs in poke out West are giving
attention to the Brazilian reciprocity
treaty, and are preparing, with hearts
full of gratitude to the party whose de.
feat they accomplished last November,
to avail themselves of its splendid OPP
portunities. When the Republican
party came into power and responsibility
in 1889 it found the farmers full of bitter
complaints. They could not dispose OF
their products. Prices were ruinously
low, and although hundreds OF thousands
of them had obtained their farms for
nothing under the Republican land
laws, they were still in hard luck. They
sent representatives to Washington who
told Mr.. Blaine that the farmers wanted
foreign markets without losing their
hold on their own, and Major 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 ther troubles
,wss accepted as correct, and their own
statement of the proper remedy to be
adopted was accepted as wise. Mr..
Blaine discovered that we were admit
ting annually goods to the value Of $780,
QD0, 900 free Of all duty from countries
which were large consumers Of foreign
fosd supplies, but which bought practi-
cslly nothing from rs. It seemed to
him that this was not fair, and that q
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. He
therefore obtained from Congress per-
mission to close our ports against the
sugar, molasses, coffee and hides of
the tropical lands unless they consented
to admit our products as freely as we
admitted theirs.
Major Mckinley, in studying the
question of how far the American farmer
was enabled to enjoy the advantages oi
his own market, ascertained that farm
products, which could as we'll be drawn
from our own farms as from those ol
Canada and the Bermudas, had come
into the United States in 1889, under
the low tariff then prevailing, to the
value OF over SOL, 100000. Our people
had bought ST, ,67S, ,763.5e of foreign bar
ley, 81, 1872, 1929 of foreign cheese, $780,
802 of foreign beans, $2,419,O 9,O04.37 o.
foreign eggs, 81, 100, ,40s of foreign hops
and over 81 100000 of ordinary garden
vegetables. Under the new tariff bill
these imports are subject to heavy duties
The American farmer is encouraged t.
90 into their cultivation more extensive
| ly, and thus, although he is permitted
to buy in foreign markets more freely
than before-more than 40 per cent. il
value Of the total importation of 1885,
being now admitted free of duty, re
mission of $65, ,0O0, 900 of practical direc
taxes-snd although, through reciproci
ty, foreign markets are opened to hin
Las they never have been before, he 1
still protected against the encroachmen
Of near neighbors in those particula
lines Of production where he has hither
to besn weak. The Brazilian trad
which Mr.. Blaine has so skillfully throw
open to him on terms that enable hin
TO compete with the chesp agriculture
labor Of Russia and the Argentine. offer
him market tomorrow for thirt,
! millions Of his wheat, rye, cotton seed
lard and butter, canned goods and hay
- Urbana Citizen.