Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1885 — Our Farmers and Tariff Wars. [ARTICLE]

Our Farmers and Tariff Wars.

Do our farmers realize liow savagely hostile tariffs cut into their profits and pockets in the matter of hog products ? The total value of the hogs slaughtered in the United* States in 1880, excluding all those kill d for retail purp ses in ordinary butchering establishments, amounted to $156,680,884. The in'.portance of this branch of agricultural production becomes more apparent whenjit is compared with the value of the wool produced, which does not exceed $65,000,000. Some four years ago the French Government issued a decree prohibiting the importation of any American pork into France. The effect of this decree was at once apparent.. In the year 1880 the shipments of pork and dried salted meats from thi4 country to France amounted to 67,965,586 pounds. The next year, 1881, being the last one such importation was permitted, the shipments aggregated 60,002,856 pounds. Now comes the effect of the retaliatory commercial policy of France upon our pork trade. In 1882, the first year the attempt to pay us off in our own coin went into operation, our shipments fell to 5,607.885 pounds—a loss of nearly 64,400,000 pounds in one year. Last year the shipments amounted to 2,949,509 poum's, against 70,000,0c.0 pou ds in 1881. In Germany we have similar results. Bismarck, having entered upon a rue-blue protectionist policy, prohibited the admission of American pork into the Empire.— In 1881 we sent over 43, 000,000 pounds to Germany. In 1882, the first year of the new Bismarekian policy, our exports were less than 5,000,000 pounds, and last year less than 3,250*000 pounds. Here we have, in consequence of the determination of the French and German Governments to punish this country for its protective and prohibitory tariff policy, a cutting off of markets for 100, 000,000 pounds of American pork annually. When we consider that this was between one-eighth and one-nintli of the total number of pounds of pork salted in the United States, is it any wonder that mess pork is selling in Chicago at a trifle over $lO a barrel? The figures given herein are taken from the report of the Bureau

of Statistics prepared by the late Republican administration. But it may be said that the motive controlling those governments in excluding American pork is not hostility engendered by our tariff. Let us see. In a report issued by the Chamber of Commerce of Nantes, France, the year before the Frenc decree against our pork was promulgated, on the subject of trade in sardines we find the following retaliatory language used: “This industry demands that when the Americans strike our products with a duty of 50 per cent, ad vulorum. and go with their salmon and other preserved fish to compete with our products, even to Australia, we should strike their products with an equal duty on their entry into France.” Again, Mr. Thomas Wilson, United States Consul at Nantes, in a report to our State Department, written in 1882, the year the retaliatory decree against American pork went into effect, says: “1 find extending through the business community, a general and widespread dislike and opposition to the American tariff so far as it affects any article exported from France, and a disposition to retaliate.” From Germany several of our Consuls have reported that the manifest purpose of Bismarck’s policy in excluding American pork from the Emp-re was protection and retaliation. But, so far as this country is concerned, the evils and burdens of this “war of tariffs,” as one of the Consuls characterizes it, fall mainly upon or farmers. Our tariff pampered manufacturers export so few of their products that the international tariff war affects them but slightly. Our farmers, however furnish the great bulk of our exports, and when a foreign nation desires to pay us off in our own coin for our trade-restricting tariff laws, it is sure to select, as France and Germany have done, some important article or articles of exports like hog products, and apply the prohibitive policy to them. Because our exports are largely made up of the products of the soil, inj all tariff wars b tween this country and other countries our farmers must necessarily be the greatest sufferers. Would it not be wise, then, as we are the chief sinners in this regard, to wipe out all warring tariff enactments, and do that much toward recognizing an international brotherhood and inaugurating the era of “peace on earth and good will among men?’ —Jackson (Mich.) Morning Patriot.