The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-13
FARMERS AND PROTECTION.


The editor of the Northwestern Agri-
culturst has evidently been hearing
/ from some of his farmers who have be-
| gun to doubt the beneficence of protec-
| tive tariffs and to lose their faith in
the "home market" Induced thereby,
he enters upon an explanation of that
| policy and presents its sentimentalisms
in a way that is "childlike and bland,
writing down, i'm charming simplicity,
all those worn and seamy old plati-
tudes with which the unsophisticated
have been beguiled and hoodwinked for
so many years. There is a pathos in
his sincerity which no one can appre-
ciate so we'll as he who has grown out
Of the same delusion which enshrouds
his mind and misleads his judgment.
And the most pathetic feature of all is
the Illusion that makes him think him
self and his kind the practical fell
lows while regarding the free traders as
sentimentaIsts. To the insane none are
| same but they
1t may be worth while to answer one
question he asks and which. with an
assurance that only ignorance can ex-
cuse, he alleges no free trader ever an
swered. The latter, he says, tell us
that protective policy prevents our eX-
porting goods to foreign parts,' and he
has never heard a free trader go be-
yond the bold assertion to any explana-
ton how a tariff on imports affected
exports very materially" 1t may sur
prise him to be told that this argu-
ment rests upon a much more solid
basis than IAN assumption of the pro-
| ducer's ignorance rests, in fact, upon
economic laws based upon the inherent
| dispositions of men and formulated
| from Investigations of the processes of
trade among nations covering so long
a period and so extensive a range as to
warrant the conclusion that they act
under a general law. Economic science
proceeds by the same inductive method
that all modern sciences employ in as
pertaining the so-called laws of nature,
of which the laws of trade are part.
While it is true that the individual
has escaped from the cumbersome
method of making exchanges by bar
ter, it remains true that, in effect and
in their last analysis, the exchanges Of
nations ale practically the bartering Of
mutual products, the surplus of one be-
ing paid for with the surplus of an
through the medium of banks of ex-
change. This is demonstrable not
only by course of reasoning from
general propositions but also from the
facts and statistics of trade as furnish
ed by the governments of all CONNER
cial nations. Reasoning from general
principles it is plain that no people
can continue for any appreciable period
to sell only, buying nothing. Payments
in such case would have to be made
in money, and it would require but
a very short time for this country, for
Instance, to deprive all other countries
of ability to buy by simply absorbing
all their money. For illustration, we
export annually between eight hundred
and thousand million dollars worth
of products. How long would it take
to transfer all the ready money to this
| country if we demanded cash for what
we sold? And after we had absorbed all
the money where would we sell there
after?
But it is not from even such conclu-
sive general reasoning as this that the
law is derived that eff you shut imports
out, you shut exports in" and that "if
you would sell, you must buy" The
trade statistics of the commercial ma
| lions show that this is the universal
sense and practice. If the editor of
that excellent agricultural journal
with due emphasis on Agricultural
will get a copy of the monthly report
OF the statistician of the treasury for
! November 1895, he will find a diagram
on which are traced the lines Indicating
the volume in value of the exports and
imports of this country from 1891 TO
1895, method of presenting facts espe-
cially well adapted to minds incapable
of grasping figures. He will be sur
prised and instructed to note how
closely these two lines run together
across the page Indicating the practical
equality of exports and imports, show
ing that as our sales increased or di-
minished our purchases rose or fell, and
| indicating that the relation of cause
and effect existed between them If he
will also get the issue for October, 1894
he will find ON page Ats a summary, in
hve-year periods, of the exports and
imports of all foreign commercial ma
tions from 1882 to 1892, and, noting how
every one of them bought, sometimes
! more sometimes less than it sold, but
always buying as we'll as selling IL
may dawn upon him that the figures
but furnish the proof of the existence
of law of trade that is Worldwide
and immutable in it's operations, the
law that If you would sell you must
buy. How it is that while each indi-
vidual trader in all these countries is
acting independently, paying for what
he buys in cash or it's equivalent, the
total results in an exchange of COM
modities must be reserved for a subse-
quent treatment. The approach of an