The San Francisco call., 1896-04-25
A WORD TO FARMERS.

Protection and reciprocity are as neces-
sarv to the material well-being of the
people OF the United States as sunshine
and rain are to their physical weli-belng,
and it may be said that of the innumerable
lines of occupation no class of producers
are more directly interested in such tariff
laws and reciprocal trade relations with
outside peoples as would establish and
MAINTAIN home-consumption markets than
our farmers, especially those who produce
cereals.
1t may not be generally known but 1t is
nevertheless true that the price OF bread
stuffs at every American railway statlon
and river and ocean wharf is fixed by
Liverpool grain and flour merchants. 1t
is also true that the surplus wheat or
Russia, India and Argentina exerts
greater influence in measuring the worlds
available supply than that OF America.
For twenty-five years the food centers OF
Europe have given India and Argentina
every possible encouragement to extend
their wheat acreage, and for some time
past the farmers of the United States have
been a mere convenience to Liverpool and
the grain markets of the Continent to the
extent of being called upon to provide
only for any balance in the demand that
is left over after the countries named have
marketed their surplus.
More than a third of a century ago
Liverpool, which is the leading center in
the world for the accumulation and dis
tribution of breadstuffs, ascertalned that
grain might be raised in South America
and Asia and laid down in her storage
houses cheaper than it could be fetched
from the United States, and the steadily
increasing imports from those countries
in recent years testify how well that great
grain market has succeeded in shifting
the leading source of breadstuffs supplies
for Europe from America to regions where
farm labor and the other items OF expense
which enter into the cost of farm opera
tions are to be obtained at very much
less expense than in this country. Thus
it Is that prices of American farm products
in Europe are fixed IN these days by the
cost of production in India and Argentine,
where the cost of labor is considerably
lower than is paid to pauper labor in
Europe. That is to say, the American
farmer is obliged to sell the surplus
product of his acres at prices that are de-
South America. who pays very much less
for labor and the other items of expense
than our farmer pays; besides the cost of
reaching the markets of Europe from the
countries named is materially less than
from any of the grain-producing country
of the United States lying west of the
Missouri River. These things, together
with the destruction of the home market
by Democratic tariff legislation, explain
why grain farming in this country is not
now remunerative.
The American farmer ought to under
stand by this time that the salvation of
his calling depends upon the re-enactment
of protection law that will ~ stify put
ting the machinery of our industries again
IN motion, that they may give employ
ment to the thousands and thousands of
farm product consumers whom Demo-
cratic free trade has sent into en- forced
idleness. The farmer should know that if
our industrial strength were developed by
protection against pauper competition a
satisfying market for his p roduct would
spring up in nearly every community, and
that he would then not only receive good
paying prices for his produce but he would
save the expense of reaching distant mar
kets.
Surely the American farmer needs to be
protected quite as much against the pau
per farm labor of India, Russia and Ar
gentina as the American producer of man.
ufactured commodities. And it may be
said that the California farmer has no ex-
cuse for not seeing very clearly that there
can be no adequate compensation for his
efforts until consumers of his produce
come from mills and factories of his own
State. But there will be no mills and fac
tories in California until capital is assured
OF the kind of protection that protects
against pauper-labor competitor VINO,
when left free to come and go at his own
will and pleasure, is as hurtful to the con-
sumer and the agriculture of America as
the locust was to ancient Egypt. As we
have said, the salvation of the American
farmer. especially the farmer of Califor-
MIA, is in permanent home market for
the products of his acres.