The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-12-16
Trying to Fool the Farmer.
From tllc Rnllinlore snn.

From the Baltimore sun.
1t is the pretense of the extreme protec-
tionists that the farmers Of the country have
been greatly benefited by the Mckinley tariff
of 1890 and will be greatly injured by the Will
son tariff of 1898. Unfortunately for these
friends of the farmer, there is no evidence at
hand, or obtainable, thai the agricultural in
terests have been helped in the least degree
by the high tariff duties now levied on the
farm products of foreign countries.
There are some economic first principles
which, like Banquo's ghost. will not down.
One of them may be thus stated: You can
not increase the home price of any of the
products ola country in producing which, by
reason OF its own natural resources, 1t has an
incontestable advantage over other countries,
by laying high import duties on the cores
ponding foreign products, which are not and
cannot be brought into competition with them
In other words, the natural products Of the
United States, those which it exports in i'm
mense quantities because it produces them IN
excess, cannot be given any real protection
by import duties. What is not imported at
all cannot be taxed at the custom house.
The foreign producer can be Disseminated
against only as to those products which he
sends to our ports and seeks to sell in our
markets.
All this seems like stating truisms so plain
that it is waste of ink and paper to print
them. Any bright schoolboy would promptly
grasp the documentary truth that no duty,
however high, can benefit to the extent of
single cent the American farmers engaged IN
raising those staple necessaries OF life IN the
raising of which European countries have
long since ceased to be their competitors, and
are now dependent upon them for a large
portion of their own food supplies.
NavarfhalasS tho Mckinley tariff actuallV
pretended to protect the price of the Amer
can 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 protectionist camp that the farmer, too,
| is to be ruined as well as the manufacturer.
| He is to lose his own home market for all
these things. The "pauper labor of Europe,
| so it is estimated, will flood this country with
corn and wheat-grown, presumably, on the
vast prairies of Central England-at such
cheap prices that the wheatields of Minnesota
and the cornfeds of the West generally will
be blighted forevermore. Cheaper foreign
eggs and bacon-produced, it is to be inferred,
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 humors of
tariff discussion which ought to set the entire
country laughing. Protecting the manufac
turers by making their raw materials dearer
is funny conceit in its way, but 1t Is a ser.
Gus and almost solemn suggestion compared
with the screaming farce Of protecting 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 pre-
tense of protection for the farmer are
worth quoting here. During the fiscal year
1892 the United States exported wheat OF the
value of $l6l ,399, 1872, and imported wheat OF
the value of $l0,307. OF wheat flour this
cOuntry's exports were valued for the same
year at 1862, 2S3, and its imports at less
than 81 ,000 OF corn and cornmeal 1t ex-
ported its own products to the value OF SAL
500, AGO, and imported foreign corn and corn
meal of the value of $378l. 1t exported APP
pies to the value of 81 407 $50, and imported
apples to the value of less than $4,000. As
to butter and its substitutes, the American
farmers sent out of this country their products
of those articles TO the value of nearly ST.
600, 600, and the total value of all the foreign
butter substitutes imported into this country
was less than $4,000.
Such figures as these might be extended
indefinitely, but these are enough to fully
show the ilusory character of the so called
protective duties on American farm products
On all these products the Mckinley tariff
fixes duties, Just as if there really was dan
ger that England or France or Germany
would be able to grow wheat and corn and
make butter and raise pork on their old and
comparatively poor as well as much smaller
land areas. send them across the Atlantic,
pay railroad freghts to distribute them all
over this continent and undersell the Amer
can farmer at his own door. And this posi-
lively grotesque idea is put forth IN the teeth
Of the fact, well known to the most superb
cially informed persons, that of all these farm
products Europe buys heavily, yes. enor-
mously, of the United States, and does so
because European farmers cannot possibly
produce them in sufficient quantity to supply
their own countries Think of levying duty
on lard of two cents pound to protect the
lard producers of the country in the face of
the fiscal statistic of of 1892, which show that
$50, 900, 600 worth of American lard was sent
from our ports and sold in foreign ports IN
successful competition with foreign lard, and
that a paltry 1921 worth was all the foreign
made lard that put in an appearance at Amer
lean custom houses.
The Mckinley tariff was not only fraud
upon the American farmer, it was an insult
to his intelligence, a gross reflection upon ms
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 iamily's clothing and all his house,
hold furniture and carpets for the benefit OF
the manufacturing trusts" 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 sue
cessful invader of the foreigners home mar
ket. And the Mckinley tariff advocates
thought in 1890, and appear to think now in
1898. that the American farmer is SO simple
minded as not to see the cheat they are try
ing to practice upon him.
The American farmer is not the fool the
high tariff statesmen have taken him for. de
understands fully the horse sense of the old
proverb that ats no use carrying Goals to
Newcastle and he is able to perceive quite
clearly that import duties levied on corn and
otbar nrodncts that are not imnorted for the