Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1891 — PROTECTED STATE. [ARTICLE]

PROTECTED STATE.

THE FARMING POPULATION OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. Tht Census Return* for Now Hampshire Show ■ Decline In the Farming Towns ] —Manufacturing Cities Are Growing— What Protection Is Doing for the Farmer—A Case Where the Home Market Theory Coes Not Work. The Census Bbreau has recently published the details of the census of the State of New Hampshire; and the figures afford an interesting comparison -with those of 1880. New Hampshire is largely a manufacturing State, and as ■such it ought to give the protectionists an excellent field In which to show how protection helps the farmer by developing manufactures and creating a market (right at his doors for bis farm products. The census figures of the State, as sent out by Robert P. Porter, show that while the popnlatiou increased from 346,991 to 376,530, or at the rate of 48% per cent., three-fourths of all the towns, or townships, in the State have declined in population since 1860. A highly interesting comparison of the population in ten of the twelve counties of the State by towns, or townships, is made in the following table, showing the number of towns in each county which reports an increase or a decrease: No. towns No. towns showing showing Counties. increase. decrease. Belknap. 3 8 Carroll - 7 11 Cheshire..... 10 13 Coos 17 8 Grafton 11 28 Hillsborough 11 20 Merrimack , 8 19 Bockingnam. 15 22 Stafford 6 7 Sullivan 3 12 Total 91 148 When the census report is examined more closely it is seen that the decrease in population is in the smaller or agricultural towns, while the increase is in the larger or manufacturing towns and cities. The decrease has been the greatest in the towns with the smallest population, the towns with less than 1,090 inhabitants having suffered a loss of 10 per cent, since Isßo. These changesare exhibited in the following table sot the 249 towns and cities of the State: Towns and cities clas- -g -g . sified according to a “ popnlation in 1890. * Population. ® ° a -2 g'*9 Popnlation 0 - £ S 55 1870. 1880. £ “ Over 20.000 1 44,126 32,630 135.23 10,000 to 20,000 3 49,105 38,927 +26.15 4,000 to 10,000 .• 8 50,953 43,172 +18.02 2,000 to 4,00(3 23 63,271 62,609 +20.28 1,500 to 2,009. 20 34,184 32,867 +4.01 I,oooto 1,501) 49 59,168 61,734 *4.18 Under 1,000 145 72,723 85,052*10.97 Total 249 376,530 346,991 +8.51 +lncrease, *Decreaiie. In the four largest cities of the State the pdpulation-has increased nearly onethird in ten years. Towns having between 2,000 and 4,000 have increased almost one-fifth; those between 1,000 and 2,000 have slightly decreased; and those below 1,000 have lost almost one-ninth of their population. This decay of agricultural life in New Hampshire, as compared with manufacturing industry, has been going on for forty years, and has become more marked under the reign of the very protection which always promises to make the farmer prosperous by making the manufacturer rich”! The following table shows the changes of population for forty years: IPer oentTof total" Population. population. • gs-S |fa ~l?Xs g s ~7~ . *** 1-1 Hi I i. 8 S 3°"S 3~® g <■* 1 ~ sssgsf -a sa l g £3 3 t !3®3d § 2§ g I "&5.3 ~3.5i ~ 3 2 Q o o o >5 5 1890 207,455 93,352 75,723 55.10 20.11 1880 167,338 94,601 85,951 48.23 Sff.2B 24.51 1870 137,440 92,314 88.555 43.18 29.0 q 27.82 1860 126,235 97,815 102,020 38.71 gO.Ofc 31.29 1850 113,506 97,628 106,842 35.09 80.71. 83.60

The cause of this decline of the farming communities of New Hampshire is not far to seek. The farmer is not protected and there is no possible way to make protection of any genemal benefit to him. The manufacturer, on. the other hand, has his market shut up, j sealed and delivered to him by a high j tariff, and, besides, he usually has a 1 trust to help him gather up the tariff spoils. The case of New Hampshire is the same as that of New Jersey, another great manufacturing State. Last winter Mr. Franklin Dye, Secretary of the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture, was before the McKinley committee, and told the high-tariff solons about the decay of agriculture in his State. The following words from his testimony afford an interesting comment upon the facts’above given in regar.d to the population of New Hampshire: .“I think the year President Cleveland was elected I was in one of the pottery I establishments in Trenton, and told the , manufacturer that ho was taking all | our farm hands from us. He said: ! ‘You must pay them the same wages.’ j I said: ‘We cannot do it; we pay all ' the wages we can afford to pay at tho ! price of farm productions.” Then ii said: ‘You are protected; you know i just what you are going to get, what it costs to put the material in shape for j market, and, consequently, you knowj what wages you can afford to pay.’ What labor is left around Trenton and other manufacturing centers now is largely a poor class of colored people, j and now and then Hungarians. For ! you know the great tide of travel has 1 been westward. Moreover, to give continous protection to manufacturing industries, whereby they have been enabled to reap good-paying—and in many cases enormous—profits, while I not equally protecting the farmer in his products, has resulted adversely to our 1 farmers in several particulars. ”