The Farmer And Protection

For years the farmer has beei urged to vote for the upbuilding o an industrial system which it wa claimed would enhance the price o his producís. This it has utterly failed to do, but it has enabled the manufacturer to increase the price of his product at thé expense of his farmer neighbor. While it has fail ed to keep up the price of the farmers wheat and other products it has compelled him to pay an increased price for his farm machin ery and most other manufacturec articles. The, following article from tle Hudson Gazette of March gth gives some reasons why the farmer should vote against protection. We especially commend this statement of the case to all farmers who vote for protection and sell their wheat for a trine more than 50 cents a bushel. He ought to be opposed to it for what it has not done. It has utterly failed to provide that beautiful home market that Eepublican doctrinarles have talked of so glibily. Twentyfive cents tariff on a bushel of wheat becomes a transparent pretense in the face of the fact tbat the American yield is millions of bushels in excess of the demand. Protection raises the farmers' hopes only to shatter them. He ouglit to be opposed to it foi what it has done. The-tradethrottling policy of protection bas impelled England and other European countries to tum away from America and look elsewhere for their breadstuffs, and the result has been the development of wheat-raising on an enormous scale in India, Russia and the Southwestern Hemisühere. out an iilmnsf inexhahstible supply of wheat every year, these countries have driven American wheat froni the European market, and the good oíd dáys of dollar wheat are gone neverto return. Another thing protection does: It enables the manuïacturers to charge the farmer au enhauced price for implements he must use, in order to proteet the American implement men from the foreign manufacturers. Yet last year the manufacturers of this country exported farm macbinery to .the value of $4,657,843 to the very wheat regious that have driven the American wheat-raiser from the European market. Does not this look rfs if the American implement-maker ought to be able to competo with the foreigners in the domestic market. Thus does protection get a doublé twist on the wheat-grower. The tarifffavored implement man is all right. Let wheat be high or low, the government gives him his bounty. 13ut the farmer, selling his product in the open market of the world, and seeing the price forced down by iniiuences growing out of the high tariff policy is compelled to pay an enhanced price for his machinery on account of that self-same system. The sins of protection, both of omission and commission, are many, and the farmer is one of the chief sufferers. He should be eternally ag'in it.