The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-12-13
THE RUIN OF THE AMERICAN
FARMER.

of the war and to re establish b credit
of the country the American tariff was
most effective; and we doubt If any
party in any country can compare with
the Republican party IN the United
States for the stupendous nature of the
work it undertook, and the success
which crowned its efforts. That the
wonderful prosperity which followed
the war should have been claimed by
that party as the direct result of their
policy was, perhas, not unnatural. The
majority of the Nation has, for more
than twenty-five years, accepted this
claim unquestioned.
1t is unnecessary to explain to Eng
lish readers the folly of protection; but
L would point out one of its inherent
characteristics: it can lev be salts
fled. Unprotected Industries demand
protection; those already protected find
tho ever increasing competition, both
from within and without, curtailing
their profits, and they clamor for
higher duties. 1t is evident that it
will finally be carried to a point where
even the most ignorant and the most
long suffering must rebel.
There has recently come upon the
stage another, and practically an entire
4AS" ACOOO4 HI q PO44OAOS OAA
American farmer. We have heard a
great deal of the depression of English
agriculture and the mis- 3rable condition
of the English farmer, who has com,
planned that he could not hold his own
against American competition. Unfor-
tunately this is too true. 1t would be
some satisfaction if = the American
farmer had made the money which the
Englishman has lost, but he has not. |
have no hesitation in saying that the
position of the English farmer to day
is immeasurably superior to that of his
competitor in America. AS regards
the rent, the difference between them
is more apparent than real. In bad
years the English landlord has to take
his share of the loss by making an
abatement in rent. In the meantime
the English farmer lives well, perhaps
too well, all things considered; he pays
only his fair share of taxation, and he
pays his laborers rather under than
over what may be considered fair
wages, as gagged either oy his own ex-
penditure or by the wages paid in other
Industries. He does little or no work
with his own hands. His wife and
daughters are well educated and live
in comfort, at the most experimenting
the dairy and the hen house, and hav-
ing a servant, or perhaps two, to do all
the work of a we'll appointed farm
house.
The American farmer pays no rent;
but as a rule he pays a much worse
thing-interest on his mortgage. Farm
ers r often unable to pay the interest
when it is due; and too often it has to
be added to the principal, and then
wiped out by q further loan at a higher
rate Of int, rest. In bad seasons the
American farmer has no landlord to
share the loss with him.
The American farmer certainly does
not live we'll, unless a diet of salt pork
and beans nearly all the year round can
be called good living. This diet he
rule, live with him. Meals r cooked
the washing, baking, etc., and hard as
an American farmer works, the wOmen
of his family probably work even
harder. He works with his men, and
generally harder than any of them, for
he has the impending mortgage ever
before his eyes. The wages he has to
pay are out of all proportion to his own
expenditures, being necessarily regu-
lated by the wages paid in protected
industries in the ~neighboring towns,
with a little added to induce the men
to come into the dizziness of the cOun
try. For everything he buys he has
to pay a protected price. Ragged, or
at least patched, he stands alone, the
one unprotected man in America.
While we have been wrangling over
the question, it seems to have escaped
our notice that Mr.. Henry Georges
single-tax theory is in full operation in
the United States, and still the millen-
mum has not yet arrived. The whole
of the taxation falls on the land, in
other words, on the farmers who own
the land, and the result is the impend-
ing insolvency of the whole of the agri-
cultural classes throughout the EOun-
try. Other classes, being protected,
a afford to pay protected prices. The
price the farmer gets for his product
is not fixed by the cost of production
in his own protected country, but by
the price obtained for the surplus he
has to export and sell in a foreign mar
ket, in competition with India, Aus
tralia, Canada, Russia, ard every ex-
porting country, thus nearly every
year leaves him deeper in debt than
the preceding year, while his land de-
teriorates for want of manure, until it
is nearly worn out, and about ten
bushels of wheat to the acre is consid-
cred a fair average as against our thirty
in this country.
"IMPROPER MARRIAGES"