Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1894 — EFFECT ON HAY. [ARTICLE]

EFFECT ON HAY.

The "Wilson Bill Will Be Disastrous to the Tenth District. Kontlaml Enterprise. The hay lands of the Kankakee valley cover a large portion of the Tenth Congressional District. Of late years the production of hay has become the leading agricultural industry of this valley. Prior to the McKinley tariff a duty of $2 per ton was imposed. This being found inadequate protection from Canadian competition, tlie McKinley act raised the tariff on hay to $4 per ton. Under the stimulus of this protection ihe hay interest was largely developed throughout the Kankakee valley. This $4 duty was not prohibitory for under it for the year ending June 30, 1893, there was imported 104,181.21 tons. But it was high enough to permit the hay to be made in the Kankakee marshlands, so as to pay fair wages to the laborers employed and some profit to the producers. The result was that in the north end of Newton county, as well as elsewhere in the Kankakee valley, a large production and shipment ofrhay; giving employment to many laborers, and the advance in price of these hay lands. The production of hay in the neighborhood of Rose Lawn was more than trebled. The shipment of hay from that point rivaling in importance the shipment of grain from other railroad stations in the county. Prices of land advanced 100 per cent. Many laborers were employed at good wages, and hay machinery of all Kinds largely invested in. This was causing altogether too much prosperity, and the people of the Kankakee region, voted for a change* and by electing a democratic congressman on a free trade platform practically directed him to strike down this hay industry by knocking off the protection of the McKinley bill for their hay industry. The Wilson bill places hay back to the revenue basis of $2 per tOD, and Mr. Hammond votes for it, as he was in honor bound to do; although he must know, as well as every well informed man in thd Kankakee valley, that it will knock all the,, profit out of the production of hay in his district.