New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1896-04-08
Short -Sighted Protectionists.

Short Sighted Protectio nists.
The gold organs Of the Republican
party and some manufacturers are prone
to speak Of higher tariff duties as if the
only thing needed to bring better times
and continued prosperity is the exclusion
from our market Of goods of foreign
manufacture, protection against foreign
competition and the preservation of our
market to our own manufactures. But
protection against foreign competition
will not, of 1tself, bring renewed and con-
tinued prosperity to our manufactures.
Our manufacturers suffer from foreign
competition competition that is being
stimulated with Europea;: as well as A
static countries by the divergence in the
value of gold and silver-buss they suffer
even more from a narrowed home mar
ket If the home market was sufficient to
readily absorb the products of our mills
and factories running to their full capac-
ity, then the preservation of our home
market would bring prosperity to our
manufacturers. But SO long as our agri-
cultural classes are impoverished, so long
us they can spare but little for manufact-
ured goods, the market for manufactures
will be restricted and our manufacturers
cannot prosper. .I
Moreover it is the ruinous competition
with the producers Of silver using coun-
tries for European markets that is i'm
poverishing cur agricultural classes.
This competition has been built up by
the divergence in the value of gold and
silver, and to meet it, our agricultural
classes have been obliged to cut prices
in half. Just as silver has fallen, as
measured by gold, our farming classes
have been obliged to cut prices, under
pain of losing the European markets, for
tie ounce of silver has not lost any of its
value to their silver-using competitors,
who have, daring the past twenty years.
ever been willing to take the same ounce
of silver for approximately the same guam
tity of wheat or cotton, asking no more
silver year after year, though silver has
gradually deprecated since 1878, as
by gold, until to-day it is worth
but little more than half as much in gold
as it was in 1873.
Thus, as silver has fallen, prices of
agricultural products have fallen; our
agricultural classes have become more
and more impoverished and their labor
less and less remunerative; for, with the
fall III prices, there has been no cores
ponding reduction in the labor-cost of
production. The same amount of Ia
Dor sutfices to produce very little, if any,
more wheat, or corn, or cotton, TO-DAY
than twenty years ago. Consequently,
as prices have fallen, our farmers have
had less and less to spend for manufact-
ured goods, and the market for such
goods has been correspondingly restricted.
Our farmers have been benefited in the
past by tie protective tariff in that it has
fostered the building up of local centers
of industry, brought farmer and manu-
facturer closer together, enlarged the
home market (always the best market)
for agricultural products, and freed the
farmer from dependence for manufact-
ured goods on foreign manufactures
The further any producer is from the
market for his products, the more COM
pletely is he at the mercy Of the trading
classes, and the smaller the price he re-
ceives for his produce compared to the
price actually paid by the consumer; for
the further producer and consumer are
the larger is that portion of
the value of the product absorbed by
shippers, transportation companies, spec
u!ators add various middlemen. Thus
the further the farmer is separated from
the market for his products, the smaller
relatively t" the price paid by the con-
sumner, must be the price he receives for
his products, and the higher the price he
pays for the manufactured goods he con-
sumes. Taxed as producer by having
to sell at lower prices, and as consum-
er by having to buy at higher prices, his
labor becomes less remunerative, the
further he is separated from his market.
Consequently the protective system,
by fostering the development of domes-
tic industries and thus bringing farmer
and manufacturer together, has benefited
the farmer by tending to free him from
dependence on foreign market, both as
a producer and consumer.
But protection alone will not bring