Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1883 — OPPRESSIVE PROTECTION. [ARTICLE]

OPPRESSIVE PROTECTION.

rnu~ letter thOURil written several months ago, is just as pertinent now asAthen. B. D. Buford, of Kock Island, the writer. Is the head of one es the largest plow factor ies in the world. The letter is an an swer to an inquiry by the Davenport Free Trade league as to how free trade would affect American manufacturers of agricultural implements. It will be found interesting reading to all classes of readers, farmery mereh ■ ants, mechanics, laborers, and pro*, fess tonal men:

Boek Island, Feb. 14, 1883.-Geo-C. Preston, Esq., Davenport. la. - Yours of the 13$h received. As I have abont as much time now as ever, J will make a brief reply to yov.r inquiry as to how free trade would effect plow factories. Jr is charitable to supnose that the party in Moline who wrote that “free trade would J wipe out from the land ever/ plow factory,” Is not a plow manufacturer, for they arc better Informed. The plow factories, and in fact the manufacturers of all kinds of ship ftbjroad jn vahie * >lt(J for’ every doharia-worth that fipmported. They receive no protection and desire nope, But everything they export has cost them an extra price to manufaotuie by reason of tne high tariff on the raw material used.

Take our factory for example. We have now in transit to Jjeeds, England, a shipment of plow bottoms consigned to a mauufuc'tocer of staem plows. We have also ujot of plows und cultiyators m transit via New Yorx for Mexico and South America, and we sell our implements to Australia and New Zealand.- Now upon all these goods we have paid protective duties on the raw materials |p them, and besides the freight in Mew Yopk, we had to compete with manufacture of others countries who are not handicapped with pre tective duties. We also sell large quantiles of our plows to Manitoba, and it so happens to a plow manufacturer of Canada, who runs a branch house at Winnipeg, and who also prefers ous goods for their superior quality, though h* has to pavon them a duty of thirty*five per cent so the Canada tariff collector. We thank our friends for tnis (by their abolish Ing reciprocity with Canada.] I think I have shown above that; tariff hurts us as exDorters and that we get no benefit from it either di* fectly or indirectly. Now as to'jxbme trade, Our 1 Ahoj??-#ao suppo t us entiioly are |farmers; They are our only prop and support, and must ba our friesds- What helps them nelps us, and what hurts the* hurts us. It is to uur interest that everything they buy they should get at the lowest price, and that every thing they have to sell they should get to market at the lowest rate and get the highest possible for it. Now, how does the tariff effect them? We have shown that we are forced to sell them and everybody our plowsand cultivators at an ad* yaflepd price by reason of our having to pay higher prices far raw material out of which they are made, which is caused by protective duties on these materials. They pay ad average Of ebout 50 per cent, increased price on everything they use and everything they wear, even when these tnings ar* staples, sueh as trace-chains, all kinds of hardware and wood, screens, blankets, clothing, hats and caps and boats and sho s When these same farmers coma to sell their oats, corn and wheat, their hogs and cattle and sheep, do these protected manufaet urers pay these farmers any more for their produce than the market of the world quote them at? They do not. The only pretense pro tective monopolies have for making the fanners pay this enormous trib uta is, that they consume the farmer’s produce and pay them a far better price than the farmers would otherwise get. e To show the utter fallacy of this argument I will mention the fact that the protected industries of the country employ less than 7 per cent, of the population employed in manufacturing; that the emyleyes of protected industries do not censtkute 2 per centj of the population of the country/Jnoludingand counting their families. The farmers can sell the produce and meat, that these 2 per cent would consume anywhere out of this country at as good a price; or, if they had to burn it, or aven oojaetopth of their produce, they would be ’ betoff. if by so doing they voold buy what they required al about half price, or even one quarter less. Congress has no right to tax one section of country to support another. If the farmers can raise more than they can sell, they have to hold Mor sell it for fuel. J j the crop does not bring enough to pay the coat of raising, congress ney< r comes to the aid of the farmer with a subsidy.— Those who run protected industries are constantly at strife with their op eratives and the latter are demanding some portion of the “bonuses”granted them, bu t rarely got u except tern porarily. They are generally in a destitute condition. This mutter of protecti n has so gtown and Lute. ed off the customers* that the duties are demanded as a right and not as a gift to a few monopolists, ihe furm•rs are a great source of wealth to. this cmntry : They should see ti\at they are no longer robbed as they have been. If they cheose to pay Pennsylvania or Massachusetts largely increased prices for their protected goods (and they have to pay for their goods just as if they imported them), let them understand that they pay those extra prices simply as a charity aad not te help themselves. If the farmers would vote'aga nst every pro tectionisti, n« matter what his politics, they would soon see their rights re*» cognized. With my best wishes for the Free Trade League, I remain yours, truly. B. D. Buford,

Tight pants and tight dresses have both gone out of style, but it seems as if tight men never will —Philadeb phia Oiironiele,