Great Falls tribune., 1922-04-27
THE FARMER AND THE
TARIFF

TARIFF
COME anxiety is expressed by thu
- republican politicians at Wash
ington because the farmers do not
show a proper appreciation ane
gratitude for the gifts they have
made them in the new tariff bill
Every demand Of the agricultural
bloc in the senate has been met
and yet many Of the agricultural
journals look on these gifts with
a critical eye and are disposed to
suspect that they are gold bricks.
The Business Farmer of Michi-
gan says, ut is a very acceptable
gift horse, provided the farmers do
not look into its mouth" This
they are not expected to do by the
politicians, but 1t seems they can
not resist the habit, for the Michi-
gan farm paper goes on to say:
"A casual examination and COM
parison with former tariff measures
would lead agriculture to believe
that its long-cherished dreams had
come true and that it is at last to
sit in the front pew of the worlds
protected markets. But a closer
inspection dispels some Of these
fond illusions. Nearly all the agri-
cultural items are in terms Of spe-
cific duties. Reduced to an ad
valorem basis at current valuations
and compared with the ad valorem
rates on commodities Of which the
farmer is large purchaser, we find
that the agricultural schedules are
actually among the lowest on the
list, amounting in few if any cases
to more than thirty per cent. OF
what benefit to the farmer is a
twenty-five per cent duty on a
world grain like wheat, Of which
we produce a large surplus, when
he must turn right around and pay
forty to eighty per cent duty on
the majority Of things he buys9
The value to the farmer Of tariff
on corn and oats is negligible. The
duties on dairy products are badly
needed and none too high. The
duty on sugar is an affront to every
American consumer. Michigan is
an important sugarbeet-growing
state, but only ten thousand Of her
two hundred thousand farmers
grow beets. But three and half
million Michigan people are asked
to add several million dollars to
their sugar bill for the direct bene-
fit of a few hundred sugar-mill
stockholders and the very small
indirect benefit Of the handful OF
beet-growers."
This is rank ingratitude from the
republican point Of view, Of course:
but we find it duplicated in the
southern farm press. There they
are interested in cotton largly and
they seem to realize, as do many Of
the wheat growing farmers Of the
north, that it is somewhat of
mockery to offer them duty on
articles they export and on which
our imports are practically repre-
sented by a goose egg. The wheat
imports Of the United States are
merely a drop in the bucket of our
supply and the cotton imports are
still less. The Southland Farmer
Of Texas declares the tariff bill
"a betrayal Of agriculture" and ex-
plains that this betrayal lies in the
promise of protection for farm
products, which is impossible to
bring about because we are an ex-
port nation for the main farm
crops This promise, it AYERS,
gave the tariff trainers an
excuse for putting high duties on
products. It adds:
"Written into law this tariff will
bring the farming regions of the
west and south under still greater
bondage to the industrial sections
of the east and north. The emerg-
ency tariff showed the fallacy Of
any tariff helping prices for farm
products to any extent worth con-
sidering. This tariff will add moth
ing worth while to returns for the
farmer, but will add hundreds of
millions to the cost Of what he
must buy.
"The bill is one written by spe-
cial interests for such interests,
with little regard to the plain peo-
pie Of the country, and it takes no
prophet to foretell what its enact
ment will cost the republican party
responsible for it."
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