The Portland daily press., 1892-08-03


here thansnis tile foreign workingman.
The Democratic leader of today seems to
think there is some peculiar sanctity
about the foreign consumer that does
not attach to the domestic. don't l
prefer the domestic consumer. because
he is the best, He consumes more, ana
has more money to pay for his living
than any other consumer in the wide,
| wide world.
More American Consumers.
The agriculturists of. this country do
not want more farmers, They want
| more people who do not raise their own
food, and whom they can supply. Every
farmer would rather have factory for
his neighbor than another farmer. Every
factory that is built UP increases the
farmers customers, the value OF his pro-
duct and the value of his land. Every
factory that is broken down diminishes
the farmers customers, the value OF his
product and the value of his land, and
increases his competitors. If the
workingmen of this country cannot get
employment in the factories, they must
seek it elsewhere. They cannot find it
in other mechanical pursuits, so they
must go to the land. There every man
| can go when he cannot find work at his
accustomed occupation, and when he
goes there he takes out of the ground a
living, and he is no longer the consumer
of your products, but produces for him
self and becomes competitor of yours
instead of customer Of yours, as he is
| today. Every new industry increases
| the farmers home market, and furnishes
| him what he most wants, profitable GUS
| toners. ~
IT, ,- Co. -, 1ayr
the farmers of the United States do not
supply every observation-disclosures of our en-
| tire population. We framed that law to
! give them this market. And we framed
that law not only to. give them the ex-
elusive control of this market, but to en-
courage Industries which would increase
| the consumers by increasing the factor
les and the demand for labor therein.
Every product of the farm is protected
by the new law directly, and by the
maintenance of our thousands of great
enterprises, indirectly, it secures for the
farmer the best market in the world tor
his products.
| How do agriculturists fare in free trade
England? Let Nj. Gladstone answer:
I'VE have in many parts Of the country
net only stationary buta decreasing
rural population. There are no just
/
ed in order to stop the process which
leaves the rural laborer in condition
where he can hardly hope to keep his
wife and children even with an INSULT
[ cient supply Of the necessaries of life"
Cardinal Manning wrote a year and a
half ago that land was going out of Gull
| tivation in parts of England.
Fair Play an English publication,
gives the rate of wages paid to agricul-
rural laborers at Berwick, Carlisle,
Whitby and Thirsh, the four principal
agricultural centers Of England.
The wages paid to young men run
from SIS to $37.50a year; to men, ordin.
airy laborers, from $40 to $55 a year; for
managers of farms, from $50 to $3.50 a
year; plowmen, $50 to 500 a year. For
girls, $25 to $50 a year; female managers
| of farm houses and diaries, $50 to 500 a
| year.
| There is nothing in the condition of
agriculture in England under free trade
to induce our farmers to exchange what
they have for what it offers, and there is
no market abrbad so valuable to them as
the one they have at home. 1t should
be the aim and purpose Of every farmer
to retain ill.,, =
The Home Market.
Horace Greeley presents the value of a
home market in way which, am sure,
will be impressive. He says:
SIT seems to me self-evident that pro-
lection tends to shorten the distance be-
tween the farmer and the artisan and
manufacturer, hence to diminish the
cost of exchanging their respective pro-
ducts, and thus to secure to the farmer
not only surer and steadier markets for
his prod' g, but an ampler recompense
for his labors. Such are the conclusions
that long ago made me protectionist.
Distant markets are all but inevitably in
constant, uncertain markets. Europe has
deficient harvests one year and buys
grain of us quite freely, but next year
| her harvestS are bOunteOuS and she re-
auires very little more food than she pro-
duces, no matter how freely we may be
buying of her fabrics. Hence our wheat
now sells very far below the price which
ruled here when Europe had meagre
harvest. A remote market virtually re-
i stricts the farmer to two OF three great
i staples, while near markets enable him
to diversity his products, and thus main
4 tain and increase the productive capacity
of the SOIL"
This statement is as true as it was %
years ago, when it was penned by its
great author, and has never been sue
cessfully answered. 1t comes with Pc
culiar force now.
We constitute less than per cent of
the worlds population, and yet we. con
1 sumo 20 per cent of the sugar of the
world, 80 per cent of the coffee of the
world, 80 per cent of the iron of the
world, SO per cent of the steel of the
world, 80 per cent of the copper, 80 per
cent Of the lead, % per cent of the cot
ton, 33 per cent of the wool, 40 per cent
of the coal, and so per cent of the tin of
the world. Yet there are those who
would adopt an economic policy that
would give to the other nations this I'M
matched market. We would preserve it,
as far as possible, for ourselves, and that
is what protection means. Why should
we surrender lit to the outside world
when we can, for the most part, supply
it and thus employ our labor and our
capital and furnish a profitable market
at home to our agricultural producers?
The enemies of protection talk un-
ceasingly about it's burdens, but do not
particularize. If there is anything that
the free TRADER shrinks from it is facts
and conditions. They cannot designate