Will Free Trade Cuke It?

The attempt of the Detroit Free Prees to fasten upon the protective tariff the blame for the mortgaged condition of &rms is silly. Granting, merely for the sake of argument, that free trade is better for the country than a protective tariff, it doesn't follow that the tariff is the cause of the trouble. We admit that the showing made by the bureau of abor in regard to Michigan farms is a áistressing one, and one that ought to e remedied if possible. Michigan iarmers cannot annually pay $5,000,000 a interest without Feriously crippling the prosperity of all branches of industry. The commissioner of labor is rigiit when he says that it is an unheatthy state of affairs. But the proiective tariff cannot be (he cause of it. Where is the proof in theory or in fect? Cry of distress in agricaltar&l regions is universal. In ric.h England, the people are leaving the rural districts for 'the cities and for foreign parts. The agricultural laborers of England and Scotland are in chronic distress. When the Cobden free trade movement began in England, it was freely predicted that free trade would put an end to poverty. They have tried free trade, caé now insteadof the Song of the Shirt, "Stitch, Btitch, stitch," the women are crying for Btitching to do. Three millien women in England are working in such dreadful poverty that it is a disgrace to civilization. The terrible exodus frorn the farming communities has gone on, and the poorhouses have been kept filled. Free trade did not cure the troublee. The Free Press wlll find t hard to prove to the people that the protective tariff íb what causes so many iarms to be mortgaged.