Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-09-13
THE HOME MARKET.
HOW MUCH WHEAT OUR PROTECT.
 ED GLASSES EAT.


 Miserable Failure of Protection to Build Up a Home nIarket-Our Protected Glasses Consume Only One-fortieth of Our Wheat.
 One of the much vaunted objects of protection is to provide home market for our farm products. Let us impose 8 high duty on all foreign goods, say the protectionists, and men will engage in manufactures here, will give em- ployment to 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 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 c. 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 B. 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 4.70 per cent; according to Elliott, 4.75 per cent, and according to Newcomb, 5.20 per cent. For our purposes here let us take 5 per cent. as the average. The population of the United States during the year 1891 may be stated at 65,000,000, 5 per cent. of which would give 3,25O, ,000 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 tion our protected classes took only 15, 266, 900 bushels of the wheat crop O 1891. But that crop amounted to 612, OOO,OOO bushels. The entire home de mand was as follows:
 Nonprotected classes. 292 S33, ,OO ! Protected home market. 5,266, ,0O For seed. 65,OOo,OO
 Total. al......................... .363, ,O99 OC Our exports amounted to 225 ,00O, ,0OC leaving thus a surplus of about 24, ,000, ,00 to go over into this years supply.
 From the above figures the success 0 the protectionists in building up hom market is seen to be pitiably insignif cant. We exported during the fisca year ended June 30, 1899, fourteen time as much wheat as our protected hom market consumed. In order to carr out their cherished idea of consumin all our farm products at home, our pro tectionists ought to have increased ou protected home market to over 50,000 900 instead of the 3,250, 900 which W now have.
 Our farmers must see how small factor the protected home market is i determining the price of their whea The 15, ,266, ,000 bushels consumed by tha market was only one-fortieth of our las years crop. If even this market we1 entirely wiped out-which nobody pro poses-the difference in the price ( wheat would hardly be noticed. Il And what are the people paying fc this market? It was shown by Senate Carlisle that on the single item of woole goods we paid duties for the first mir months of the Mckinley law amountin to SIS, ,192, ,339. This sum was more tha the value of all the wheat consumed la. year by the protected classes, and eve then this takes no account of the il creased cost of domestic woolens by re; son of the tariff.
 These figures are sufficient to sho what an absurdly high price our farn CTS are asked to pay for their home ma ket. They show, too, what a miserab fraud upon the farmer Republican pr lection is.