Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-11-01
TARIFF AND WHEAT
TRUTH THAT FARMERS SEEM
SLOW TO REALIZE.
Surplus Products of Agriculture Sold
in Competition with Other coun-
tries, But Trusts Are
Amply Protected.

Ouc Tau udTuly Dldme the ldrLlerS
In the wheat growing regions for or
ganizing a combine to hold their
wheat until the price advances. A
dispatch from Kansas City reports
the price Of wheat as so cents a BUSH
ell less at the interior markets in
Kansas. There is a loss in growing
wheat at that price, with all the
farmer buys at the present high
prices. The tarfff-proteoted trusts
have advanced the prices of nearly
everything the farmer buys over As
per cent. since the present high tariff
law was passed, SO that prosperity
for the wheat farmer is a myth, al
though Secretary Wilson, who, being
secretary of agriculture, should know
better, declares the farmers were
never so prosperous. Secretary Shaw
is making equally presposterous state
ments, and states in the speeches he
is making on his partisan stumping
tour that the tariff makes the farmers
prosperous because it protects the
home market from foreign importa-
tons. But facts belle their words, for
wheat is protected in the tariff by a
duty Of rs cents a bushel, but that
does not prevent the price from de-
preciating until in Kansas, as noted
above, it is so cents a bushel.
1t is strange that Republican farm
ers swallow such Republican state
ments and vote to continue that party
in power, which protects every trust
that produces what the farmer must
buy and only pretends to protect the
farm products. The tariff includes
duties on wheat, corn, oats, barley,
cattle, hogs and other agricultural
products, but the price of those farm
products is settled by the law of sup
ply and demand. If there is a surplus
of wheat and other farm products it
has to be exported and sold in the
worlds markets in competition with
the surplus of other countries, and
that fixes the price here. The tariff
duty might be doubled and it would
have no effect on the price, or 1t
might be abolished and the price
would not be affected.
No farmers trust or farmers union
can control the price of wheat unless
the combination is complete enough
to prevent wheat being sold to the
mills which supply the flour that the
American people require. If the
wheat growers could prevent enough
wheat being marketed to supply the
mills, the milling combine at the great
-four milling centers, such as Mime
apolis, would probably bid up the
price enough to induce the farmers
to sell until the price was too high to
manufacture and ship the flour abroad
at a profit. When that limit was
reached you may be sure the mills
would be shut down rather than run
them at a loss. To prevent the mills
shutting down in the spring Of 1905,
when there was a shortage of wheat,
the administration allowed Canadian
wheat to be imported in bond, with
out the payment of the duty of rs
cents a bushel, and ground in the
mills at Minneapolis, and exported
as flour. That was the Republican
way of protecting the farmers when
they had a very short crop and an OPP
p~ortunity of averaging up the prices
with the years like the present one,
when a large surplus has been raised
and the price is low.
The fact is that the farmers have
%prospered in spite of the tariff, which
has increased the price of about all
they buy through the protection the
trusts and combines enjoy. The good
OF poor crops are not the result of the
tariff, but good crops are due to the
bounty of nature when the season is
propitious, and the poor crops when
nature frowns and Is ~unfavorable. The
ideal for the farmer is to be allowed
to buy in the cheapest market without
any more tariff restriction than is
necessary to produce enough revenue
for the government, honestly and eco
nomically administered, and to sell
In the dearest market that his prod
uce can reach The Republican poll
cy, miscalled protection compels the
farmer, and everyone else for that
matter, to pay not only the tariff tax
to the government, which averaged
on all imports for last year 1884 pei
cent, but the still greater tax which
the tariff allows the trusts to collect
by increasing their prices, which av-
erages on trust products a much
greater percentage than the govern.
ment collects. Not content with this
trust %plundering the tariff law pre-
tends to provide protection on the
farmers wheat and other cereals, the
price Of which no law a govern, be.
cause the surplus crop, after our own
people are supplied, must be sold in
the open markets Of the world after
paying the railroads and shipping
ombines all they demand.
That is Republican protectionism,
which would not stand a minute II
Republican farmers would join their
Democratic neighbors in electing tar.
lift reformers to congress.
Eound In Bad Companv.