The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1893-12-27
irving TO Fool the Farmer.

and VIII be greatly injured oy tue
Wilson tariff of 1893. Unfortu-
nately for these friends of the
farmer, there is no evidence at hand,
or obtafnable, that the agricultural
interests have been helped in the
least degree by the high tariff
duties now levied on the farm pro
duets of foreign countries.
All this seems like stating tru-
isms, so plain that it is a waste of
ink and paper to print them Any
bright schoolboy would promptly
grasp the rudimentary truth that
NO duty, however high, can benefit
to the extent of single cent the
American farmers in raising those
staple necessaries of life in the rails
ing of which European countries
have long since ceased to be their
competitors, and ara now dependent
upon them for a large portion of
their own food supplies
Nevertheless, the Mckinley tariff
actually pretended to protect the
price of the American farmers
wheat, corn, oats, rye. butter, milk,
bacon, eggs, pork and apples. And
now that the Wilson bill proposes
TO remove these absurd taxes the
cry goes up from the ultra protec-
zionist camp that the farmer, too, is
to be ruined as well as the manu-
facturer. He is to lose his own
home market for all these things.
The ''pauper labor of Europe, so it
is intimated, will flood this country
with corn and wheat-grown, pre-
sumabIy, on the vast prairies of
Central Eugland-at such cheap
prices that the wheatfelds of Min
nesota and the cOrnfields of the
West generally will be blighted for
evermore. Cheaper foreign eggs
and bacon-produced, it is 10 be in
ferred, in the boundless farming
countries of Central Europe-are to
be shipped in vast quantities the
moment Mckinley duties cease to
protect the fresh-laid fruit of our
native hens and the juicy meat of
our home raised hogs.
Truly this is one of the broad hu-
mors of tariff discussion which
ought to set the entire country
laughing. Protecting the manu-
facturers by making their raw ma
terials dearer is funny coneeit in
its way, but it is a serious and
almost solmn suggestion compared
with the screaming farce of pro-
tecting the farmer by taxing those
foreign farm products which never
come to our ports to be taxed, and,
in the very nature of things, never
will. A few figures bearing on
this ridiculous pretense of "protec-
ton for the farmer" are worth
quoting here. During the fiscal
year 1892 the United States ex-
ported wheat of the value of $751;
399, 132, and imported wheat of the
value of s1O,3O7. OF wheat flour
this country's exports were valued
for the same year at 1852 ,283,
and its imports at less than $4,000.
OF corn and cornmeal it exported
it's own products TO the value of
81 $50, 400, and imported foreign
corn and cormeal of the value OF
s3,7S1 1t exported apples to
the value of s2,4O7, $50, and i'm
ported apples to the value of less
than $4,000. As to butter and its
substitutes, the American farmers
sent out of this country their pro-
ducts of these articles to the value
of nearly $4,000, 900, and the total
value of all the foreign butter and
butter substitutes imported into
this country was less than $4,000.
Such figures as these might be ex-
tended indefinitely, but these are
enough to fully show the illusory
character of the so called protective
duties on American farm products.
The Mckinley tariff was not only
a fraud upon the American farmer;
it was an insult to his intelligence,
a gross reflection upon his common
sense. 1t highly taxed everything
that he needed to use upon his
farm, all his tools, implements and
machinery, all his own and his
family's clothing and all his house
hold furniture and carpets for the
benefit ofthe manufacturing "trust. +"
Then it turned round and Knocked
him by putting duties on the farm
products which he raises in such
abundance that he has no foreign
competitors for his home market,
but is himself the successful invader
of the foreigners home market.
And the Mckinley tariff advocates