Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1884 — TARIFF. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF.

A Revenue vs. a Protective TAriff* BY W. D. BYNUM. PROTECTION, IT IS CLAIMED, GIVES A MARKET TO FARMERS. If the protectionists can succeed in making the laboring classes believe that their wages are kept up by the tariff, they have only to fear the farmers. They therefore tell the farmers that the tariff builds up manufactures, gives employment to consumers, and thereby furnishes a home market for the farmer’s products. Do manufacturers locate to suit themselves? Do they look to see where they can consume the most of the farmer’s products or to see where they can manufacture the cheapest and thereby sell the most? Whenever manufacturers locate in a town or neighborhood they purchase the products of the farmers in that vicinity because they can buy from them cheaper than from any other source, and when the farmers purj chase goods from the manufacturers they do so because they gel them cheaper than from a distance. The benefits are reciprocal. The manufacturer sells to the farmer as much as he buys from him. Manufacturers locate only wlvre it i* to their advantage to do so. and because they incidentally benefit the local markets, they have no greater right to a bounty than the farmers because he sells their operatives corn wheat, pork and beef cheaper than they could purchase where they formerly carried on their establishment. No one need flatter himself that manufactories will be erected in |any community for the special benefit of the people.

.Mr. Stebbins takes great pains t ) show that farm prodiicts are higher in manuiac- ; t tiring districts than else-j where. No one disputes this fact. So are farm lands. Near Indianapolis good farming lands are worth fiom one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, while fifty and a hundred miles distant, on railroads running directly to the city, better lands can be bought for twenty-five dollars per acre. Now, if a farmer wants land to farm, i the cheap lands are the most i profitable, because they produce as much, acre per acre, and he can own and cultivate four times as much. Manufactoies follow population. As soon as a town or city springs up with sufficient rail-1 road facilities, and with abundance of coal, water, etc., manufactories are built. Why? Because rents are cheaper, provisions cheaper and goods higher than in the older places, and the manufacturer, by taking possession of the new location, commands the market in the new district without strong competition. Mr. Stebbins studiously avoids giving any table of benefits the farmer confers on the manufacturer who locates near him. The tariff, however, d es not bring manufactories to the farmer’s door, but keeps them away. The stronger the competition the quicker will manufacturers take advantage of every favorable cirumstance. If English manufacturers could ship goods to Indiana and sell them as cheaply as the Eastern manufacturers, would not the Eastern manufacturer be more likely 1o remove his mill to Indiana, in order to save freights, and thereby undersell his competitors, than if he had no competition whatever. The truth is, the tariff is in the interest of Eastern manufacturers. By keeping out strong competition from abroad, they are enabled to keep it down at home. Every new establishment that undertakes to start up in the West or South is crushed by a reduction of prices, unless the circumstances are so favorable that this mode of warfare, can not be indulged in without too great, a sacrifice. Give ns an outlet for xiroducts, and the day is not distant when manufactories will be shut up in foreign cities and their establishments planted in the midst of our rich coal fields in the West. We are told that the farmer must look to a home market for Ins grain, his pork and his beef; that England is now increasing her supplies from Egypt and the Indies, and that soon there will be no foreign market for the farmer’s surplus; that he must pay a tribute to the American manufacturer in order to insure a market for his products.

In answer to this claim Governor Whitcomb said: “Let us see if the manufacturers can give us double price for our produce. Let us see if they can consume it. In the good old times of virtue and simplicity, the mother and daughter in a thrifty farmer’s family did their own spinning and weaving and were able to clothe their fathers and brothers. By modern improvements, most of our clothing is made in the large manufactories. Now suppose that ten men engaged in manufacturing were to clothe as many who might be engaged in raising provisions, and that they should mutually supply each other, But the thrifty farmer and his sons could easily raise a great deal more provisions than the whole family, men and women, could eat. Ten able-bodied men on our ' estern farms, therefore, can furnish [far more than ten puny manufacturers could consume. But this compstlson would be conceding entirely too much. Calculate

the number of yards of clothing, the number of hats and pairs ot shoes that the ten farm era would use in the course of a year, and then how long it would take the ten manufacturers to m ike those articles. Now, the real condition of our manufactories makes the difference still greater. The great difference consists in the wonderful improvements made in machinery. It is ascertained, that one man with a spinning machine, can produce as much yarn as two hundred and six-ty-seven men can with each a one-thread wheel. Now, even if it took one manufacturer all his time to make clothing for one farmer' the same manufacturer, with the assistance of a machine, could make enough, from the above calculation, to clothe two hundred and sixty-seven farmers. But this labor saving machinery has but one mouth to feed (the man who tends it), and one farmer, by planting a few more rows of corn, could stuff that mouth into an apoplexy. What will the other two hundred and sixty-six farmers do with their surplus produce?” This was forty years ago. There has been greater improvements in the last forty years than in the forty years preceding. E very tliing is made by machinery to-day. 'ihe inventive genius of the American people has been superior to that of any other nation. New processes have been discovered and new machines invented until it looks as though we had reached perfection. While improvements in machinery have been made, by which the cost of articles, has been reduced, the value *of manufactured articles, per capita, lias gone on increasing. The value of manufactured articles.per oapi ta, in 1850, was $44; in 1860, $65; and in 1880, $lO7. From 1850 to 1860, the increase in manufactured goods, per head, was over 47 per cent., and from 1860 to 1880, about 65 per cent. There has been a greater increase in the quantity of agricultural products. The improvement in farming implements and the improvements in farming have been so great that our surplus of agricultural products has grown so large as to exceed our entire crop of twenty years ago. In 1860 we produced 176,104,924 bushels of wheat, less than six bushels per capita, while in 1880 the crop was 498,549,868 bushels, nearly ten bushels per capita. The increase from 1860 to 1880 was 188 per cent. The value of live stock in iB6O was *1,107,500,00, less than S4O per capita, while in 1880 it had reached =*500,000, 000, or nearly 3100 per capita. What, then, is our real condition? The value of manufactured articles, even at greatly reduced prices, lias increased from 65 per capita in 1860 to $lO7 in 1880, over 65 per cent., while the number of bushels of wheat lias increased 66 per cent, per capita, Upon one side our manufactories have multiplied until we can no longer consume their goods, and upon the other the larmers have by the use of macmnery, etc.,| improved their crops until we are unable to consume their products. In this condition the manufacturers say to the fanners, ‘ Give us protection and we will increase in num- ! ber and increase the number lof our employes until we can consume ail your surplus.” But the manufacturers are already making more than we can consume. Now, when they propose to increase their number, so as to be able to consume our surplus of products, will they tell us where and to whom they expect to sell their goods? For several years we have been accustomed to sc e the doors of our manufactories closed for the

purpose of allowing the “oveiproauction” to be worked off or consume*!. While our manufactories have be en filled with goods, and our granaries o :er flowing with cereals thousands of laboring men, for the want of work, “have been starving at the feast and famishing at the fountain.” Home market for our farmers! The absurdity of such a proposition is apparent from the fact that ot ‘804,228,682 exports in 1888, 3610,269,449 were the products of agriculture. The manufacturers protected by the tariff form an insignificant portion of American consumers. The farmers, rail roaders, mechanics, machinists, merchants, etc., constitute the great bulk of consumers It is the farmer that furnishes a market for the manufacturer, and not the manufacturer that furnishes a, market for the farmer. In 1880, the farmers of our country exported 98,169,877 bushels of corn, 2,912,744 bushels of rye, 158,250,995 bushels of wheat, 75,129 hogs, 186,720 head of cattle, 3,915 horses, 4,158 mules, 215,680 head of sheep, 1,624,843,605 pounds of cotton. 1,963,208 gallons of lard. 732,249,576 pound of bacon and hams, 54,025,782 pounds of fresh and 86.750,563 pounds of cured beef 38,248,016 pounds of butter,141,654,474 pounds of cheese, 326,658,686 pounds of lard and 325,279.540 pounds of leaf tobacco. Of what benefit to us is our rich soil, our great fields and golden harvests, if our farmers are to be fined one hundred million of dollars or more each year for selling their surplus products to foreign nations? e hat proportion of the farmer’s products do those who are protected by the tariff consume? And what must be the increase in order for them to consume all the farmers have to sell?

In 1880, there were employed in manufacturing, in all in(lub tri e s in tlie United States, 2,788,895 persons. Of this number 531,639 were females over 16 years of agin and 181,921 were children. Far less than half the number, however, were engaged in industries protected by the tariff. Our manufacturers of clocks, sewing machines, edge tools, fire-arms, engines and all the finer manufacturers of iron; our manufacturers of doors, sash, shutters, furniture and farming implements, and a hundred other industries that might be named, derive no protection whatever, notwithstanding there is a duty upon such articles as they manufacture. It is safe to say that the total number, including operatives and their famine ;, protected by the tariff, do not exceed 5,000,000 persons. The amount of wheat consumed by each inhibitant in a year is six bushels. The total amount consumed by this class, who propose to devour everything the western farmers can raise, is only 30.000,000 bushels. In 1882, two counties in our State, Daviess and tf-ibson, had a surplus of over one million bushels each. Thirty such counties as these are now raising a sufficient surplus to bread our entire manufacturing. classes protected by the tariff. . And although these industries are now manufacturing more than we can use, they propose, if our farmer< will not trade with foreign nations, to multiply until thev can consume the surplus iii the whole country. Again we ask, who will purchase the increased supply of goods manufactured? Because, if they are not sold there will be no money to pay to operatives, and no money with which to buy the farmer’s produce. Without exaggerating, we may say that a drought in the Mississippi Valley will destro v more in a fortnight than the entire manufacturers benefit-

ed by the tariff can consume in a year. Their number ; compared to our population, is less than one-tenth, and if they were to cease buying for a whole year, our farmers would scarcely be able to discover the fact in the reduction of the demand for their products. The absurdity of this argument is so apparent that it merits no further demonstrations. The whole secret of protection is that our farmers are the best buyers in the world, and American manufacturers are determined that they shall purchase nothing abroad. An examination of the tariff law will disclose the fact that every article which the farmers would be likely to take in exchange for their products is taxed from sixty to one hundred and twenty per cent. In many cases the tax is more than the article originally cost. This exorbitant tax is not for revenue, but to prevent our farmers from taking such goods in exchange. We are told that it we reduce the tariff our manufactories will be destroyed. •‘True,” says the protectionist, “we have a supply of raw materials, timber and coal in abundance, provisions plenty and cheap, skilled labor and all kinds of machinery invented by our own workmen; true, we can manufacture cheaper than our foreign competitors, bT we could not go on were it not tor the tariff.” Is it possible that the friends of protection are so hard pressed as to be compelled to state such an absudity. As well claim that it was necessary to protect the giant with lance in hand against the attacks of the dwarf armed with a reed.