The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1896-10-02
WHERE TT HURTS.
ONE EFFECT OF THE WILSON
TARIFF ON THE FARMERS.
How IL Has Injured Their Markets In the
Lumber and Mining Regions Theis
Best Customers Becoming Competitors
-Farmers' Institutes I'm the Upper
Peninsula.
Peninsula.

| upon certain farming industries has
already been considered at some length
In these columns. The indirect losses
OF the same class of producers, through
suspended industries of other kinds,
are almost as great, though not quite
so apparent.
Next in value to the farm products
OF the state, and following close upon
them, are the products of the pine and
hardwood forests, the pine lumber,
lath and single cut alone, having, in
It's best years, reached a value of over
VOC, 900, 900. When these two industries
are booming the pine and hardwood
forests and mills furnish the best mar
ket there is for the products of Mich
igan farms. The lumber camps, in
winter, create a demand for immense
quantities of hay, oats and bran, to-
gether with market for draft horses.
They are also heavy consumers of
every staple article of food for man, es-
pecially for those products in which
Michigan excels, wheat flour, beans,
potatoes, apples, beef cattle and pork.
Following the breaking up of the lum-
Der camps in the spring comes the
starting of the. sawmills, which con-
tinue the demand through the summer
and fall. In the most prosperous years
for numbering the farmers north of the
d., G. II. Il M. railway have had mar
ket for their products almost at their
own doors and at their own prices,
Changes in the tariff have had an
immediate effect upon this industry by
transferring a good deal Of the sawmill
work to Canada, while the general de-
preston of business has greatly re-
duced the demand for lumber Not
since 1857, when it was in its infancy,
has the lumber business of Michigan
been so paralyzed as during the present
year. Operations in the camps last
winter were smaller than for many
years before, and the mills are running
light this summer. Stocks on hand are
heavy and their owners find it difficult
to realize on them. AS a result the
farmers have lost the excellent market
which they formerly had in the woods
and the sawmill towns, and have to
pay freight charges and commissions
before they can get Detroit prices,
while they become competitors with
their brethren from other parts of the
state in the Detroit ;lnd eastern mar
kets. The depression in this one in
dustry has made a difference of many
hundred thousand dollars in their re-
ceipts since the Wilson bill passed.
Next to the lumber camps and saw
mills, the mines of the upper peninsula
employ more men and pay out more
in wages than any other single indus
try in the state In 1892, before the
election turned the country over to the
Democracy, many of the iron mines of
northern Michigan were running night
and day shifts, with as large force of
men as they could work to advantage.
Wages were good and the men and
their families were liberal purchasers
Of clothing and of all food products.
With the threat of tariff changes came
reduced prices for iron ore, and the
threat was followed by the enactment
Of the Wilson tariff, which dealt to
iron manufacture a heavier blow than
to any other branch of manufacture
except that of wooden goods Within
one year after its enactment that law
doubled the importation of bar iron,
destroyed the cotton industry in this
country and closed up the factories,
almost doubled the imports of steel in
gots and blooms, and increased the i'm
ports of tin plate" The direct result
Of these increased imports is a lessened
demand for American iron ore and the
evil is aggravated by the general de-
preston of bu siness caused, in part, by
the same tariff. The result is disas-
trous to the Michigan mining district.
During the past six weeks, when ope-
cations ought to have been more active
than at any other time in the year,
mine after rhine has ceased work, and
in some cases the pumps even have
been stopped, allowing the mines to
fill with water. Many of the miners,
instead of being the most liberal Of
purchasers, are likely, during the COM
ing winter, to require aid from public
appropriations or private charity.
The purchasing and consuming power
Of thousands of families has thus been
seriously impaired. Not only that, but
many OI UneIu nave DecOlne producers
Of farm and garden products When
the miners were earning from So. so to
B3. so a day, with plenty of work., they
had neither time nor inclination to
work farm or garden under the disad-
vantages of soil and climate that xist in
that region But, under the str, ,ss of
enforced idleness and reduced pay , they
have undertaken both. Last W inter
witnessed the novel spectacle of & arm
ers' institutes in a region which be fore
that had possessed little of the qua lily
of an agricultural district, and anot her
.erleT of institutes has been arrang ed
for ln.. ~'inter.
The Wilson tariff has thus help ID
to destroy a gOou market and I o
raise a competitor. DO the farmer q
of lower Michigan want four year 8
more of L.?
All the prosperity enjoyed by tho
American people, from the founding OF
the United States down to the present