Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1886 — WHY FARMERS ARE POOR [ARTICLE]

WHY FARMERS ARE POOR

Every M an’s n and Against Them AND ALL ON ACCOUNT OF the Tariff. Chicago Times: Everything a famer has to sell is very low; everything, or nearly everything, that the farmer has to buy is comparaively high. Wheat, over a large portion of the legion in which it is produced, brings the raiser but 50 cents a bushel. The price of grain harvesters and self-binders, however, remains the same as when wheat is worth $1 a bushel in the place where it is raised. The same is the case with the plow that turned the furrow, the harrow that pulverizes the soil, and the seeder that put in the crop. Everything that is turned off from the farm is very cheap, but everything that is turned off from the factories is very dear. The old scale of prices for farm products has been all changed, but the scale of prices for produce of manufactories remains practically unchangad. Beef, mutton and wool are all low, but posts and wire necessary to fence a pasture cost as much as they ever did. “he price of cloth is not affected aporeciably by the fall in the price of wool. A farmer may get a small price for hi s hides, but he pays a high price for the bootc and shoes and harness that he is obliged to purchase. Potatoes are cheap, but the bags in which they are put, and the wagon that is used for taking them to market, cost as much as they did when pot toes brought twice the money that they do at present. It is also noticeable that the rates of transportation, and the commission merchant’s charges for selling them, are as high as when potatoes brought $1 a bushel. Formerly the prices of articles required for food governed the prices of almost everything else. price of most articles was regulated by that of wheat, as that was regarded as the most important of all products. All this is changed now. Farmers have nothing to do in regulating prices; they take what is offered for their products, “he price of nearly every article they are obliged to purchase, however, ia regulated by associations and combinations formed among manufacturers, “he manufacturers of nerly every important article combine to limi t production and keep up prices, “liese even combine to prevent the establishment of factories similar to their own.— In many departments of manufacturing there is no competition between different establishments. A uniform scale of prices is adopted, which is rig dly adhered to. In many cases our patent laws and tariff syatem enables them to establish and perpetuate the most oppressive monopolies, “he western farmer learns the price of wheat by reading the market reports of Liverpool. lie gets no information a' out the price of cloth and articl s made from iron and steel by consulting the quotations. in the papers of Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham, “hese quotations are of no value in this country, except to enable our enterprising manufacturers to double the figures. The producers of articles or food in this country are obliged to compete with the producers of similar products in every part of the world, but our manufacturers. whose goods farmers are obliged to have, have no competition except among themselves. As before stated, they generally manage to prevent such competition. With such a state of affairs, it is no great marvel that farmers are not prosperous.