Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1905-07-27
What We SELL ABROAD
Our Exports Nearly All Agricul-
tural Products.
THE TARIFF A BARRIER TO TRADE

Why the Foreigner Refugees tn Rux
our manufactures Our Surplus
Farm Products Sold In the Cheay-
est Market, While the Farmer Buys
In the Dearest,
Inc protectionist boasting of the vol.
ulle OF our export trade does not show
up very We'll for our manufactures
when the facts are investigated. While
the United States exports a large
quantity OF agricultural products--that
is, raw materials-only s per cent of
all our exports are manufactured
goods, and these form but 1 per cent
OF all our manufactures. That shows
the low ebb the protective system,
Which eliminated in the passage Of
the Dingley tariff bill, has brought our
foreign trade to, and there is no posi-
DLllty OF increasing the amount Of man
fractured goods we can sell to for
e1gn countries until the DingIey tariff
is revised.
The foreigners will not buy of US if
we do not buy of them, except our ag-
r1cultural products and the products
OF our mines and forests, Of which the
foreign countries that purchase cannot
produce enough to supply their own
necessities. Our wheat, corn, cotton,
pork, timber and metals have to COM
pete in price with like products Of
other countries, and the price paid for
them is what the foreign purchaser is
willing to give.
Protection adds nothing to the price
we receive for these raw products
which our farmers, lumbermen and
miners have to sell, but the tariff does
add very largely to the price of all
kinds of manufactured goods which our
W consumers have to buy and there.
fore increases the cost of producing
our agricultural products. This is an
admirable system for the manufac.
turers, who, by the way, are mostly
combined together into what we call
trusts, but are a constant drain upon
every one else, and, most Of all, upon
the farmer, who is compelled to sell bis
surplus products in the cheapest mar.
kets-the markets Of the world-and
buy what he cannot produce in the
dearest market, which the trusts have
created here.
The defense Of this system Of pro-
lection is even more extraordinary and
misleading than the statements sent
out from Wall street by the masters
Of frenzied finance to induce the pub.
lie to buy the watered stocks they
have created. The protectionists tell
u farmers and other producers of
raw products that the home market is
the protective tariff, but forget to say
that the price for which these "a
products must be sold is settled by
what the surplus will bring in the
world markets, after our own people
are supplied with all they can con-
sumo and afford to pay for.
Every farmer, and especially farm
ers' sons, should study these simple
facts of political economy and arrive
at a conclusion if this system Of pro.
lection is best for their interests Or
whether it has not been invented to in.
directly prey upon them. The success
sion Of good crops here and partial
failure abroad for the past few years
are hardly likely to continue for another
series of years and the good times en-.
joyed by u farmers may at any time
be changed into hard times, either by
large cereal crops the world over OF
by partial failure Of crops here. When
either of these events occurs the pro.
tective system built up by the Repub'
lican party will be exposed in all its
hideous deformity and the demand fol
reform will be irresistible.
The part of wisdom is to prepare fol
what must happen in time to avoid
great disaster, and this car only be
done by a reasonable revision Of the
tariff that will be fair alike to al
classes and yet produce enough rev
enue to run the government, honestly
and economically administered.