Where It Hurts

The direct effect of tariff reductioa upon certain farming industries has already been considered atsome length in these columns. The indirect losses of the same classof producers, throug-h suspended industries of other kinds, are almost as great, thougli not quite so apparent. Next in value to the farm products of the state, and following close upon them, are the products of the pine and hardwood forests, the pine lumber, lath and shingle cut alone, having, in its best years, reached a value of over $60,000,000. When these two industries are booming the pine and hardwood forests and milis furnish the best market there is for the products of Michigan farms. The lumber camps, in winter, créate a deinand for immense quantities of hay, oats and bran, together with market for draft horses. They are also heavy consumers of every staple article of food for man, especial ly for those products in which Michigan excels, wheat flour, beans, pota toes, apples, beef cattle and pork. Following the breaking up of the lumber camps in the spring comes the starting of the sawmills, which continue the demand throug-h the summer and fall. Jn the most prosperous years for lumbering the farmers northof the D., G. II. & M. railway have had a market for their products almost at their own doors and at their own priecs. Changcs in the tariff have had an immediate effect upon this industry by transferring a good deal of the sawmill work to Canada, while the general depression of business bas greatly reduced the demand for lumber. Not since 1857, when it was in its infancy, has the lamber business of Michigan been so paralyzcd as during the present year. Operations in the camps last winter were smaller than for many 5'ears before, and the milis are running light this summer. Stocks on hand are heavy and their owners find it diffieult to realize on the in. As a resul t the farmers have lost the excellent market whieh they formerly liad in the woods md the sawmill towns, and have to pay freight charges and commissions before they can get Detroit prices, while they become competitors with their brethren from other parts of the state in the Detroit and eastern markets. The depression in this one iniustry has made a difference of many tmndred thousand dollars ju their rejeipts sinee the Wilson bill passed. Next to the himber camps and sawmills, the mines of the upper península smploy more men and pay out more n wages than any other single industry in the state. ín 1892, before the slection turned the country over to the Demoeracy. many of the ir.in mines of íorthern Michigan were running night ind day shifts, with as large a forcé of men as they could work to advantage. Wages were good and the men and their families were liberal purchasers Df clothing and of all food products. With the threat of tariff changes came .-educed prices for iron ore, and the threat was followed by the enactment of the Wilson tariff, whieh dealt to ron manufacture a heavier blow than to any other branch of manufacture sxeept that of woolen goods. VVithin Dne year after its enactment that law "doubled the importation of bar iron, lestroyed the eottou industry in this ;ountry and closed up the factories, llmost doubled the imports of steel infots and blooms, and inereased the imports of tin plate." The direcl result Df these inoreased imports is a lessened Iemand for American iron ore and the svil is aggravated by the general depression of business caused, in part, by the same tariff. The result is disastrous to the Michigan mining district. During the past six weeks, when operations ought to have been more active ;han at any other time in the year, nine after mine lias ceased work, and in some cases the pumps even have oeen stopped. allowing the mines to fill with water. Many of the miners, .nstead of being the most liberal of purchasers, are likely, during the coming winter, to require aid from public Vppropriations or private charity. The purchasing andconsuming power if thousands of families has thus been teriously impaired. Notonly that, but nany of them have become producers of farm and garden produets When ;he miners were earning from 82.50 to (3.50 a day, with plenty of work, they aad neither time nor inclination to vork farm or garden under the disadían tages of soil and cl i mate thatexist in Ihat región. But, under the stress of nforced idleness and reduced pay, they nave undertaken both. Last winter ivitnessed the novel spectaele of farmïrs' institules in a región whieh before that had possessed little of the quality )f an agricultura] district, and another series of institutes has been arranged for tb is winter. The Wilson tarift" has tlms helped to destroy a gooil market and to raise a competí tor. Do the farmers or lower Michigan want four years more of it? All the prosperity enjoyed by the American people, from the founding of the United States down to the present time, has been under the reign of protective principies; and all the hard times suffered by the American people nave been preceded either by a heavy feduction of the duties on imports, or by a threat of such reduction, or by tnsufficient protection, thus refuting ill free trade theories on the subject.