Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1888 — AGRICULTURE. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURE.

Much is heard now about the bush, ness of the country. If the meaning of tue phrase is to bo closelyscanaed certainly it might bo correctly defin-. ed as *hat vocation in which the largo eat number of our citizens are en~ gaged. The capital Invested in this pursuit, comprising as it does the immense acreage under tilth and the improvements thereon, is inr ny times larger than that employed in any other. Seven millions of the people of the United States are found at work In planting and farming. If \ 0 this numbe; bo added those employed in the manufacture and sale of agricultural implements and machiuety, in the transportation and preparation of farm products for the mar re:, who are really as directly interested theiein as if they held the plow, it will appear that the number of those engaged in agriculture iar exceeds that round in any other calling, and|''s eq .al to U.e whole number cf those in all other industrial pursuits com. bined. There are also some plain, unmistakable indications that no; ihe finger out the wholo Land of destiny designed this. We have in the domain of the Unis ted St ites tie largest area of tillable soil ever embraced within the limits of a single Government, greater than that of tne Roman Empire at its period of widest extension This area of land is situate in a kindly climate, it is facile of cultivation, fertile,, productive, and is placed by that enaut daughter of tne flood and fire, called steam, at a much less distance fr">m the densely populated portions of the globe than the granaries of E ypt or the Euxine were from Itaiy rnd its ancient m tropolis More than this; we know that in years not long gore by, American wheal, corn, and cotton sad their secondary products did command and dominate he market for these staples in the emporiums of the world That per.od, not yet passed, is pasoing away From what causes? Commerce doubtless began between nati ns, as anteng individuals, with barter. With ail it® modifications, improvements and dependencies fit is barter yet - But *we now barter debts and exchange accounts, for the commodities wbtob have been disposed of. Instead

' f the commodities themselves The balance struck, always a small sum compar d v ith the whole amount of transactions, is paid in money by the debtor. Nor is this balance of trade always accounted as a losgAy those who fay it, The really commercial nations neither shun this bai«n?e nor its payment. They pav the balance because they have received some'* thing for their money worth more than that they parted with. But they decline to trade or pay except of necessity where they are forbidden to trade in return. A commercial peo* pie needing such supplies, will buy their wheat cotton, and other siaples where they may sell, or have an opportunity to sell, or at least are not forbidden to sell their own merchandise.

By long yeirs of a highly restrictive policy as to duties upon imports we have driven the trading people ot the globe to theßiaokSea, ths Baltic, and evon to L.dia, for wheat; to Egvpf. to Bengal, to tne uttermost isles of thesea for cotton. This Dolby returns to plague us. The plague is manifest tn the great and steady reduction in the demand and consequently in the price of our farm products.

Thi re is no man who this spring drew a furrow expecting to rai e morff than enough for his own use w ho does not know that the value of the surplus o 9 his crog and consequently of his labor, depends not upon his own settlement or neighborhood. Ho will And price set upon wha' ho has to spare and sell is fixed at the county seat or railread station; there it depends upo- t e price at New York or Chicago or elsewhere, and at these points upon the price at London or Liverpool or other trade centers of the world. The price of our surplus produce is fixed by those who need it, not by those who do not, The farm °r can organize ne trusts, and the ever- bountiful forces of ature are not 1 ss ned by fear of overproduction. It is true that American staples are yet purchased—they are the best and most useful of these articles But they are purchased at reduced pric s and In less quantity, Theforeign buyer does not purchase as under circumstances of fair he would or might, but only when he must.

A return to #ur former p dicv, that of fair trade, would bring with it that superiority iu the market oi the great agricultural products which we once enjoyed' Ncr can any ohe truly say that a reasonable reduction in the duty-list upon imports could injure any other interests. No period in the history of our country can be found when agriculture highly flourisn d and manufactures declined or commerce decayed. When the pecu ciaiy advantage of tho majority is subserved, that of ail others will be aggrandized. The abundant and diversified products of the soil, these constitute our largest material forexport, have always done so; the high eat price for the largest quantity, this is the grammar of our commercial life’.

There is no array of statistics, there is no fiction of labored calculation, there is no romance of ritbmetic which will demonstrate that a nation has ever grown rich and prosperous by a continued disparagement and depression of its chief industrial occupation. Even American manufactures are wholly competent for and now re quire a more extended outlet We have during the present session appropriated money ani authorized the appointment of commissions to attend expositions of trade and mechanism abroad. To what purpose, if the present system is to be continued? We can imagine the American commis* eioner at Melbourne, at Paris, or at Barcelona, surrounded by his exhibits, preaching the deco philosophy of mercantile restriction and embarc go: “The articles you see before you are specimens of the products and manufactures of the United States—they are only to be S6en. like the famous pietures of the old masters at the art shows, they are not for sale. Our nreadstuffs, our utensils and nia chinery are meant and made but for Americans. We are naught for pur chasers—we seek no sales outside.— We sigh only lor the gains, the prof its, and the dividends of the home market.” Was there ever a superstition more strange or more irrational than the notion of eonver s ing the whole body of our farmers, artisans and manufacturers into a mass of cloi ered hermits, employed solely in furnish ing each other with supplies, and when by this distorted convcrsi n large portions of the wealth of the country are transferred from the many to the selected and protected classes to call t is national pr sperity? Whereas by this transfer not one jot or tittle is added to the na tioti’s wealth; there is merely a change of its possession— a change of the persons holding the fund. It is not perceived hew manufactures are to b# really fostered and encouraged by unnecessary and excessive taxation uponjtha materials used therein, upon the coet of subsistence of the men using them, or by a stinte market for their sale No doubt these methods protect and enrich the owners of tho s ochs and shares; b .t a government charged with the du‘y

of promoting the general welfare can not be bonnd forever to the fortune of a small minority. These processes must be regarded in j deadly hostility to the true and i real interests of manufactures by | all ex cept that intelligent contra- j baud of commerce who will only ear of the imposing and impossible myth of exclusive domestic consumption. The farmer, the skilled artisan, the laborer find now a large part of their moneys needlessly impounded in the pub lie Treasury. Many are the sayings of the wise, consolotaries writ, to comfort the losers by this confiscation. There is an eternal J Aremiad concerning the pauper labor of Europe. The farmers and planters of the United States have now for many years been competing with the pauper labor of Europe, of Asia, of Africa; with that of the peasant of the Nile delta, who works ror 10 cents a day. The existing policy of socalled protection has forced that competition. What has thus cheapened and pauperized labor in India in Egypt, or China, or elsewhere? Long ages of commercial lestrietion and reoression, the entire inhibition of foreign trafic; a constant isolation and seclusion of manufactures; an exclusively internal consumption, both of work and wares, the dry r» t, an ataxia of national enterprise. Yet it is seriously proposed that this nation, new born, in its youth and strength, should receive its lessons in political economy and the practical rules of its revenue administration from the archaic and moJdering systems of ihe Mikado and the Mandarin. The trade of Great Britain with our neighbor, Mexico, and the countries south thereof last year very much exceeded the entire foreign commerce ni the United States. The countries of South America, lying near us and manv of them closelyrelated to us by the similarity of their governmental forms, have a large external trade, but not with us—it is with England, Germany, Italy and France. Is this because the pottery, cutlery, utensils, textiles, or machinery of these countries are better than our own? The South American will himself say no; but hs will also say that the duty-rates here upon the products of bis own country which, he has an abundance, which we lack, are so high that they can not profitably be exported hither; and these being his material and stoek in trade, ho must buy where he can make some disposal of them, not elsewhere. But a.though all inquiry into the causes of the wealth of nations, the experience and observation of mankind, have alike shown that an extensive foreign commerce is a chief element in national thrift, and especially in that of manufactures, the prohibitory protectionist will none of this; he prefers discoursing upon the imaginary free-trade tendencies of Mr. Mills tr Cox, both of whom are this very moment urging the passage of a bill imposing the highest duties eve'rjknown as peace rates in the history of this country. Protection like fire or water is a good servant, hut a bad master. Over protect! n leads by every way and road to overproduction, to consequent stagnation and decay. . It can not be shown or proven that any pe r son or corporation in good faith engaged in the business of manufacturing will be injured by the reasonable reduction of duties, or that a y employe of such an on. will be so harmed. That they will be is onlv a prediction made by a very small school of the prophets whom the narrowest self interest has prompted to assume the lole of Amos or of Malichi. The emancipation of labor from the operation of unjust laws, the liberation of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures from inequitable and impoverishing restrictions, the lestoration of the people to iheir ancient commercial rights and franchises—this is what is proposed by the message of the P -esident. The enjoyment of these rights and franchises by the multitude of dealers,whom no man can number, buyers and sellers nor known at the board-room or on ’change, the men and women who chaffer daily wage for dailv bread, whereof the consummation will not be retarded or prevented by the recent action at Chicago. The platferm and the nominee of the convention held there are alike exponents of the views and interests of those privileged castes who have so long, under loud and false

clamor of protecting others cared only for themselves, who hare learned nothing of popular interests except to betray them The candidate is a well-beloved i and chosen representative of that I rank and lawless growth of incorj porated power whose insolence his principal rival in our State did so much *o curb, and which this new aspirant favor % He would faithfully defend,protect and encourage American industries —by tbehigaest, most prohibitory,and unnecessary restrictions, and by the permitted migration hither of the cheap alien labor of the Chinaman. A man of no inconsiderable capacity, of great mental force and acumen, he has that not often found with these—a harsh intolerance ■which treatc dissent as idiocy.— Deeply touched and tinged with the prejudices of an exclusive class aristocracy, he belongs to that group of reactionary statesmen, traditional paternalists, whom the people have so often rejected, and wil ! again. Justice to the great-*r number in this commonwealth of States can injure no others. As uncommercial and unsophisticated as the notion may appear, simple justice to those who by the work of their hands create and produce it, is a principal ingiediant, a necessary element in the accumulation of national wealth.

A free people cheered to their labors by the assurance of a fit reward, vexed by no unnecessary exactions or the fear of them, will not be lacking iu skill or diligence. They w 11 have he genius to wrest from nature tha best use of lier best forces; tact to take advantage of opportunity in watching the grand economic and commercial changes which sweep from time to time aero the disk of civilization; they will have the courage to meet hand to hand and face to face the nations of the earth, and in those contests for supremacy, whether m arts or arms, which attend the progress of humanity, they will come forth more than conquerors.