Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1891 — Increase or Farming. [ARTICLE]

Increase or Farming.

The preposterous claim is made by the protectionists that our farmers get greater advantages out of our high protective tariff than anbody else. Let us see. If they get a greater advantage than the manufacturers agriculture ought certainly to show a more rapid growth than manufacturing industries. If farming has the. chief advantage from the tariff, and if protection be the most excellent thing that the McKinleyites claim that it is, then it must follow as a natural consequence that many people will bo attracted to agriculture. The farmers’ sons will stick to the farm, other people’s sous will take up farming; and thus the more favored industry must inevitably show the greater relative growth. A real advantage is bound to attract people who want to make money; and a greater growth is necessarily -the result. If this result

does not follow, the advantage claimed is thereby proved to be purely imaginary. Two years ago Michael G. Mulhall, the famous statistician, prepared a paper showing the relative growth of American industries. The paper contained a computation as to the relative increase in population, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, railroads, shipping, banking, and steam power in the United States from 1850 to 1888. Mr. Mftlhall adopted the returns of the Federal census for 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880, and supplemented them by figures collected from official and other sources down ; to the close of 1888, and which were doubtless quite as accurate as the census returns. The showing made by these computations gave the following percentages of increase in thirty-eight years in the different lines: Percentage ot Increase. Bailroads 1,000 Banking. goo Steam penrer 685 Manufactures 408 Commerce 315 Agriculture..: 252 Shipping.. 74 Population 170 While manufactures increased 408 per cent agriculture increased only 252 1 er cent. And yet say the protectionists, “the farmer gets the chief benefit from the protective tariff.”