The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-09-18


most respectable path from Democracy
to Republicanism.
[ need not devote much space to
the moral question, whether any CIV
ilized government has, or ought to
have, the power to tax one class OF
the people for the benefit of another
class; or to the question, whether the
agricultural class, whose incomes de-
pend on the uncertainties of rains,
storms, hail, frost, grasshoppers, boil
WeeVilS, etc, ought to be compelled by
Federal law to assist in insuring uni
fcrmity of prices from year to year to
| the manufacturing class; or to that
other question, whether our forefath-
| ers were such strangers to sentiments
| of justice as to delegate any such pow
| er to the common government of the
States. There can be but one answer
| to these questions when submitted to
an enlightened community; and every
| honorable gentleman must agree with
| the late Mr.. Gladstone, who declared
in a noted debate that the advocates
Of protection must insensibly deviate
from the law of equal rights and
even from the tone of genuine person.
al independence"
Your neighbor gives credit for the
high prices of our farm products to
the present high taxes on imported
foreign goods, and the consequent en-
couragement of capitalists to enlarge,
extend and multiply domestic manu-
featuring plants, whereby it IS alleged
tile demand for agricultural products
has been wonderfully increased. But
this supposed cause of high prices has
been discovered by very short"sight-
ed review of recent events, and very
poor recollection of the experiences of
the last twenty-five years. With the
exception of about two years when the
Wilson act was in force-and let it not
be forgotten that President Cleveland
refused to sign it because there was
so much protection in it-Republican
protection has been blessing or curS-
ing the country ever since 1865; and
! yet in the New York market, accord
| ing to the Statistical Abstract of 1900
| cotton went down in 1892 to seven
| and seven-tenths cents per pound, and
! in 1898-the year after the Dingley
act opened up the road to prosperity
! Ito five and ninety-four hundredths
| cents; fine wool went down from fifty
cents per pound in 1880 to twenty
six and a half in 1899; wheat went
down from one dollar and ten cents
per bushel in 1891 to seventy-nine
and a half cents in 1893; and corn
went down from fifty-one cents per
bushel in 1894 to thirty-two cents in
| 1897. And these prices were conSid-
n
| ,ceived; you remember that cotton
sold on the farms in North Carolina
in 1898 for about four and a half
| cents, and that ten or twelve years
! ago the Kansas farmer was reported
to be burning his fifteen-cent corn
| rather than exchange it for coal. But
this document presents another
stumbling block to the protectionist;
it shows that from 1853 to 1860, dur
| -J,i iol, lo1 h.
protectionists have always denounced
as Democratic free trade the price
Of cotton in the New York market
varied between ten and one-third
cents Gin 1850 and thirteen and a
half cents lin 1850, never falling be-
/ low the former price; that from 1855
to 1860 fine wool in the same market
varied from forty cents per pound in
the former year to sixty cents in the
latter, while in not a single year of
Republican protection, since the re-
sumption of specie payments, has the
price gone above fifty cents.
1t is beyond dispute, therefore, that
your Populist neighbor must go out
side of Republican legislation to find
the causes of prosperity" especially
! if he remembers the fiuctuation in
the price of tobacco in recent years.
But, if the reasons thus far given
|
der your populist neighbor's conten-
ton, invite him to study of the re-
suits of protection in the section where
manufacturing has fiourished for a
! century-results which might have
| been expected if we accept the doc
trine that among the inexorable laws
Of nature there is a statute which
| prescribes that the iniquties Of the
fathers shall be visited upon the chill
dren unto the third and fourth gen.
Grafton. Selecting the period of the
most .inexcusable protection, in which
| the majority of the farmers of New
England have been willing to pay two
prices for shoes, hats, clothing, ETC.,
provided the farmers of other States
lWere compelled to pay the same
prices, thus enabling the manufacture
! ing establishments in their States to
| furnish a "home market for their
farm products let us ascertain from
the figures in the Abstract of the
! Twelfth Census whether this law of
nature has been operative in that sec
ton. If your Populist neighbor will
examine five or six pages of this docu
ment, beginning at page 286, he will
find some mighty interesting read
| ing" He will see that while the in
crease in the number of farms in Vir-
| ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina
and Georgia from 1880 to 1900 was
| 1858, $50, there was a decrease during
the same two decades cf 29,916 in the
SIX New England States and New
| York; that, while in the same period
! the number of acres of improved land
| i'll these four Southern States increased
/ by 1884, ,072, those in these Northern
! States decreased by 2,503.632; and
( that in the same period farm property
| in the Southern group increased in
value more than $300,000,000, while
| in the Northern group it decreased
more than $179 100000.
Such was the prosperity" to the
| farmers of these manufacturing States
Nearly fifteen hundred of them, on an
average, were driven each year for
| twenty years from their farms to seek
| homes elsewhere or employment in an
already glutted labor market in the
manufacturing centres. thus leaving
| the rural districts in the condition in
which they we're found by a corre-
spondent of the New York Herald q
| few years ago. Writing of what he
| had seen in Maine, he said: Though
the abandoned farms in Maine have
not been so widely advertised as they
have in Massachusetts and New Hamp-
shire, there are plenty of deserted
windowless houses in the Pine Tree
state. plenty of rare old orchards