Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1886 — False Friends. [ARTICLE]

False Friends.

A very will o’ the wisp to lure him on to his ruin is the protective tariff to the American farmer. What has he to be protected against? Are the superfluous breadstuffs raised 1 y the “pauper” labor of Europe and Asia likely to be imported into this country, and swamp the price of bis pro. ducts? Is the agricultural industry that enriches the broad, fertile plains of this country likel / to droop and die for want of encouragement, unless the agricultural products of poorer countries are excluded from our shores by the fiscal nostrum of the protectionist? The American farmer has nothing to be protected against. The Russian peasant and Indian ryot have not yet contrived, nor will they for years contrive, to raise grain in sufficient quantities to supply even the markets of consumption in Europe. It will be some time before they can compete with the American farmer in the American market. Until that date the farmer of the West has no need for a tariff. The tariff is Iris bane. In oar fiscal system, to be sure, there is a tariff on the importation of such products as our farmers raise. But these are mere paper taxes. They are included in the list simply to tickle the farmer’s fancy—to delude him, if possible, into the belief that they protect and encourage Ins industry. But they don’t. The duties on agricultural produets are placed on the schedule to blind the farmer to the imposition laid upon him in tlie sole interest of the manufacturer. He derives no advantage from this protective tariff, but on the contrary is heavily mulcted by it. Every article of liis duly use, whether in his house or on his farm, costs him perceptibly more than it would if the tariff were removed, and he reaps no advantage anywhere from the general enhancement of prices—on the contrary he loses by it. All the advantage there is goes to the manufacturer.

The practically uhlimited market for his surplus products that the Western farmer has hitherto had in Europe has closed his eyes to the grievous wrjng which he suffers through this taxation —devised and maintained for another’s use. But things will not always remain so. It costs 18 cents to raise a bushel of wheat in Daxota or Minnesota; it costs 8 cents in India. When wheat cultivaiion has been sufficiently developed in India—as it promises in a few years to be —to supply the demands cf European consumers, to what market is our Western farmer to carry his breadstuffs? Home consumption cannot dispose of his surplus, foreign consumption will draw from a cheaper source. The downfall of our agricultural industry, on its present remunerative scale, is simply a question of time if it remains handicapped by the existing system of taxation. Several cents a bushel in the present cost of production of wheat are due to the tariff; sevei al more are due to transportation on protected railroads and protected ships. All this extra cost will in a few years time put our agricultural products out of the reach of a market, uj|less it is removed. The protective tariff is a tusus naturte to the farmer, which, if pursued, will of necessity be his ruin.-—New Orleans States.

Snobley —Aw —aw —it must be very unpleasant for you Americans to be governed by people—aw—whom you wouldn’t ask to dinner! American Belle—W 11; not more so, perhaps, than for you in England to be governed by people who wouldn’t ask you to dinner !-Punch.

The Money Will Go Farther. —Wheat at sixty cents is better than ninety two years ago. A bushel of wheat will buy more now than at any time within the past six years —Bloomfield Democrat.