Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1890 — FARMERS SHOULD FAVOR PROTECTION. [ARTICLE]

FARMERS SHOULD FAVOR PROTECTION.

The attorneys for free foreign trade are persistent in their appeals to the farmer. Professing the utmost solicitude for his welfare, they seek to mislead him into the support of a policy that will inevitably impair the purchasing ability of those who are now his

chief customers. Ninety-five per cent, of all the products of American farms are now consumed by American people. A larger majority of these would be unable to buy in quantity and quality as they now buy were it not for the wages received for labor in industries which, under free trade, would be divided if not altogether given over to people fed and clothed from pioduets of foreign fields. In return for his aid in overturning the existing business arrangements, the farmer is promised lower prices for what he has to buy, and is asked to believe that foreign customers will be found to take the place of those he may lose The fallacy of such teaching, as well as the hollowness of the promise, lifes in the assumption that the farmer’s success is any Jess dependent upon a general prosperity than that of his fellow men in other callings. Farming is but one of the essentials to complete national economy, and a farmer can no more make his business profitable in the absence of good customers, than can the merchapt or maaufacturar. And Inscustomers must necessarily be found outside of those who are engaged in agriculture. Without steady work and for laborers, merchants, clerks and the army of working people now find it more to their interest to buy than to produce the varied products of the soil they consume, the farmer would be compelled to confine his efforts to the few products that can be shipped abroad. Equally unreliable is the free trader’s contention that the farmer gets no direct benefit from the ex- j

isting tariff. During the year ending June 30, 1889, dutiable field pioduets, such as live animals, breadstuff's, milk, butter, cheese, hay, hops, tobacco, vegetables, wool, were imported to the value of over $44,000,000. To this sum may be added the items of hemp and flax amounting to $11,500,000, and more than $7,000,000 worth of fruits on which duty was paid. Every dollar exacted from foreigners, for the privilege of selling these articles in competition with the products of American fields, served as protection to the producers of domestic products. The free trade policy of England has reduced the number of her farms, as well as the profits of those remaining under tillage, and as similar results will surely follow its application in this country, the farmer should be the last man to vote for a change in that direction .