Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1892-09-23
THE HOME MARKET.

One of the much vaunted objects of
protection is to provide home market
for our farm products. Let us impose
high duty on all foreign goods, say
the protectionists, and men will engage
in manufactures here, will give en-
ployment to a large number of laborers,
and thus great home market will be
built up and our farmers will sell all
their produce at home. On this basis
they seek support for the protective sys-
tenn among the farmers, claiming that
the advantage of this home market
more than repays the farmers for any
increased cost Of manufactured goods.
This attempt at building up a home
market has now been going on for many
years, and it is time for the farmers to
demand Of the protectionists what prog
ress they have made in their vast under
taking. Fortunately that progress can
be measured pretty accurately.
The proportion of our population en-
gagged in protected industries can be
stated at about 5 per cent.-a result
reached by averaging the computations
made by three distinguished officials of
the government during President Cleve-
lands administration. These were
Worthington G. Ford, chief of the bu-
reau Of statistics of the state department;
Professor Simon Newcomb, superintend-
ent of "The Nautical Almanac" navy de-
partment, and E. B. Elliott, the United
States government actuary.
These three authorities reached slight
ly different results. According to Ford,
the number of persons subject to foreign
competition is 40 per cent; according
to Elliott, Ats per cent, and according
to Newcomb, $50 per cent. For our
purposes here let US take per cent. as
the average. The population of the
United States during the year 1891 may
be stated at 65,O0O,0O0, s per cent. of
which would give 3,25O,OO0 as the num-
Der of persons dependent upon protected
industries.
Taking now the single article of wheat
and determining the position of last
years crop consumed by the protected
classes, we can arrive at fairly correct
idea of the value of the farmers home
market. The agricultural department
at Washington estimates that the aver
age per capita consumption of wheat is
AZ bushels. At this rate of consump-
ton our protected classes took only 49,
100000 bushels of the wheat crop of
1891. But that crop amounted to 612,-
100000 bushels. The entire home de-
mand was as follows:
Nonprotected classes. .292, 1888 600
Protected home market............... 15,266, 900
Hoi eeeu' oo,oVoVo
Total. 1858, 0990 900
Our exports amounted to 225,00O,O00,
leaving thus surplus Of about "a, 100000
to go over into this years supply.
From the above figures the success of
the protectionists in building up home
market is seen to be pitiably insignif-
cant. We exported during the fiscal
year ended June 30, 1892, fourteen times
as much wheat as our protected home
market consumed. In order to carry
out their cherished idea of consuming
all our farm products at home, our pro-
tectionists ought to have increased our
protected home market to over 50,00O,-
900 instead of the $3.50, 900 which we
now have.
Our farmers must see how small
factor the protected home market is in
determining the price of their wheat.
The Is 1866, 900 bushels consumed by that
market was only one-fortieth of our last
years crop. If even this market were
entirely wiped out-which nobody pro-
poses-the difference in the price of
wheat would hardly be noticed.
And what are the people paying for
this market? It was shown by Senator
Carlisle that on the single item of wooden
goods we paid duties for the first nine
months of the Mckinley law amounting
to SIS, 192,339. This sum was more than
the value of all the wheat consumed last
year by the protected classes, and even
then this takes no account of the in
creased cost of domestic woolens by rea-
son of the tariff.
These figures are sufficient to show
what an absurdly high price our farm
ers are asked to pay for their home mar
ket. They show, too, what miserable
fraud upon the farmer Republican pro-
lection is.