Low Wages And The Farmer

A farmer living in the Interior f ['eunsylvnnia writét ■ Ion;; letter lo llic Pribune, the gist of whicli is (liis: "Can 51 r. Horr explain how it s that armers are in Hiiy wav benetited by u irotcctlvc tarüF which simply aUIs men wlio manufacture goods and ihe artisans pinployptl in tlieir chops and f actor es? Is It not for t lic interest of farmers t li: t wages should be low? By keepinr np the priceof labor n all these (freat mtnufacturiDg establls'imcnts, does not that compel us farmers tn pny more for our htred help and tlius actimlly njiire us? I see no way ofavolding this conclnsion.' Th.it is a questloo askod by men who till the 8Oll. Indeed, the advocites ot' f ree t rade are contuntly n--.fi lint; thal what onr Irqulrjog friend supposes to be truc and have led man y men who are farminft for 1 living to believe their assertion. Let us examine the (iiiestlon carefully, and eee if the building np of manufactUring industries and the keeping up of wafjes of all men who live by their daily toil is not of vital interest to the farmers of the United States. in me ouisei permu me to give a staiencnt once made by Abram S. Hewitt, of his city, pon that very subject. Mr. Uewltt, you may know is one of the leading DemocratB of tliis country, and was, not long ago, Mayor of New York City. [ will add tbat bavlDg served witli Iiiin several yenrs in Congress, I fomul 1 1 í tri o be one of tlie ablest men belonging to that party : "If the whole productive industry of the country were employed In producing the anieles which we sell ibroad, whicli are mainly breadstnfti and provisions, cotton, rice and tobáceo, we sliould produce a niuch larger qunntity than we could sell; foreigu markets wouM soon be sint;ed witli these articles; the priceof Ihem would fall. The labor that produced them would, as a matter of conree, rectiive less remuneiation than lt now does. Tlie only stopping point In the decline of wages would be the starving poim. 1'herefore if we would keep tip tlie priccof labor we caimot employ the whole productive labor of the country in raising such articles as we expon; and the farmer?, of all the men In the community, are most interested in employing in some otlier way that amount of labor which If devoted to agricultura would produce a glut and a consulent li of prices in tlie forcigti markets; and the only way in which such surplus labor can be emploied is in producing certain manufactured articles which c;m be bought cheaper in forelgn countrie?, and becai:s; lt tiikes less labor there to pre duce them, butbecíiuse that labor is paid for at a lower prlce." Henee Mr. Hewitt concluded the necesslty of a taritl' whioh will prevent the labor of our free country from being reduced to the level of the pauper labor in the monarchlcal governments of the O!d World. Mr. Hewitt was right. The crops of the farmer are his wages. Most of the farmers do all their own work. Our correspondent surely canaot mean thal he would like to get a good price for li is crops and at the same time pay the men who aid him in their production a poor JlMCt. KIL Uit II lltUUi. ilüll llllUL ,-VI III nice for him; but liow about the hircd men '! I assert that the wages of workingnien should alwaya be graduated by tlie rice of the arlicle produced. Wben farm producís bring a good round price the men liired on farms should be well paid, much more than, wben farm products are low. But, as nio.-t of our farm ers do the great bulk of their own work, tbeir wages are entirely dependent upon tbc prico of what tliey raise. Ncarly all the workers of the world can be divlded i uto six classes: The men who raise something - farmers; the men wIki malie sinething - artisans, niecbaucs of all kinds; the men whodigsometbing out of ihe earth - miners and quarrymen; the men who transport or sell articles - thecoinmon carriers of all kinds and merchante, those who act as mere eervants; and our army of professional min. Now no proposition can be more certaiu tban tbis - if you take ('rom the arlisaus and miners, frotn the carriers and otlier classes, lare niinibers or uien, and ilius crovvd moro men into tilling the soll, you will most produce a glut in the products of the soM ml lead lo low prices for what the farmers raise. What we need to-day in this country is not more farmers, but more faetones, more artisans, more men to consume the products ot our farms. Now here is where kok! wages come into play. Suppose the population of our country was slationery, just as it is in France, where the nation hs little or no growlh from one len ycars to anotber, certainly not any growtb wortb ppeaking of, and where the farmers are thrifty and among the niosl prosperous in the world. Suppose now that our farmers raised a surplus of tbeir products, just as tuey do in America to-day, where tbe surplus burdens some branches of farming fearfully and is about tbe only thing these branches of farminsr have to contend with today. Unless a sale can be found in foreign land for that surplus (and some perisbable commodities tbat is out of tbe question, and for some of our otlier products we can only get a low price) tbe only way out of tbe difficulty is to draw away from farminj; some of the people engaged in tbat business and put them ïnio oiner enipioymenis, anu mus crème a body of consumerslnrgeenough to take all the farm surplus and turn it into casli lor the farmer. You cannot do thi?, you cannot draw farmers away into mechanical pursults, unless wage9 are good; unless they have a prospect of making more nioney in the trade tlian they could make by farming. So if labor is high tlie farmer may pay more for his lielp, and have hard work to get them at tuat, but he can stand the burden for the sake of a larger body of consumere in the country, which , will insure him better prices (or his farm producís. Look at it n another way. As a matter of fact our population Is not stationary. It is growing all the while at the rate of nearly 1,125,000 each year. lmmlgration is pouring into tliis country ia a steady atreaiu. Young men are growng up to sturdy manhood by the hundreda of thousunds. 'l'his gives a quaiitily of unemployed labor in this couutry all the while, and to this body of nieu are constantly being added the employés of business estublishments and farmers who have failed or gone out of business for otliers. Henee every few years we have a glut of unemployed humanity in tli e country. Wiiat are you going to do with these men? What is the best disposition of them for the farmer? Shall they go out West and begin ratsing gram on the new lands of the West? Or shall they bny tools and go into the mechanical trades? Is it not best for the farmers that wagrs shall be high enough and that our taiïff shall be so adjusted as to make work enough to tempt the great bulk of this ummployed labor away from asnoulture and into the other industries of the country ? Iet me Ilústrate. Suppose under the new Tarifl law there should be built up here in the United State Immense tinpíate faetones and large Hoen industrie?, working sny 30,000 people and earning tbe food and clothing for at least 120,000. Would it not be of vastly more benefit to the farmers tlian to have those 30,000 men jo to tilling the soil, and not only raise all their own food, but also rnise a furplus which would most surely lead to the glut so clearly stated by Mr. Hewitt Never lose siht of this fact: Penple conume the producís of farm and shop In pioportlon to tlie wajies pail them. Wlipn va"es aro luw, consumición is at Itri minimum. Wlien wajiés ure bljrhi people live better and consumo up to the maximum point. The good wages paid i-T work is what innkes the markets of the United Stiltes the beet markets in the wnrltl. They are the best simply beCiuise men who work are better paid than In any other country on the face of the eartli. General Jacksou once Btated the proposilion most cleurly. He siiid : ' Where should the Americim larmer seek i market for hls surplus products? Coniinon-senee pointa out ut once where. Draw from agriculture the superabundant labor. Kinploy it in mechan Ism and manufacture?, thereby creating a home inarUct tor breadatuffg and dlstributiiiR ] labor lo :i mni proQtable account, and bcnelit9 to the wlinle country II l'ollow." Dn nol lu-c silii o(' iliis t'.iot. N'n couiiliy ever DecaniH rlch mul pro.-perini n agrleulturè alone. Tbegreut m cd of oor country is to furnisli einployment Ht goud waTrs for the enlire people. And in :i country iiicreniiii so rapidly in populiition na ours, to do thia we tmt make wittiin our own boulers vcry ■ rticle coiiAumed wltbln our own bordere every artielf consumod hcre tlmt we dossilily i'.iin, nd ehould grow all our il .x, herap, wodI, etc, on American farnis. TliHt is prtciaely the resul t glmed at by our systi'iu ol' a proteetivo taiitV. W'licn judloloosl; Icvitd eucli a tarill' benetlta our eiitin! people, and no class of our laboring cit:i'iis more tlmii t'iose who t 11 the soil. Periult me to inake a predlctiO". II' the liew tarill' luw sliall ! put i tito liltlit'ul and honcst optration in this country, new industries wil) iprlng up, better prlcea wlll bc reali.ed by our farmers for the producís of tholr land, and that will be u Mre and p'eaüant miswcr lo om lriend'8 iníiuirics.