Show Is A recent article we attributed the democratic disasters in Ohio and Indiana to the mistaken policy of that party in repudiating its own doctrine of revenue reform We then alluded to a valuable pamphlet recSntly published by Mr Graham McAdam secretary of the New York I Free Trade Club and promised to recur to it It is a modest tract of only thirtyseven page issued by G P Putnams Sons and is entitled The Protective Syotem What it Coats the American Farmer Now we apprehend that if some insidious rats were to make free with granaries of our farmers carrying oS never co email a portion of their wheat an attempt at laaii would be made to stop their depredations Certainly if a farmer was told that there were rats on his premises be would endeavor to ascertain the truth or the falsity of the report Mr McAdam in other and more forcible I words tells us that these rats abound and that they are of the breed of Protection Let the farmer reflect for one moment Does he not see that he either paya a duty lo the government or a bounty to our own manufacturers on every article of his clothing on most of his groceries and on all of his agricultural tools the prices of all thesa articles being governed by their consumption in the home market Does he not also see that although he contributes to the welfare of the manufacturers they pay him absolutely nothing in return as the price of his wheat and corn is mainly determined in tbe markets of the world where he is obliged to compete with all other nations How important is it then that every farmer whether he ha heretofore been a democrat or a republican should henoaforlh enquire into the economic views of the candidates for Congress who csk hit support Those art the conclusions at which Mr McAdam arrives 1 Tho heaviest burdens of the American Ameri-can protective system full upon tbo farmer 2 The farmer receives nothing in return re-turn On th contrary ho is hampered in his efforts to extend his export trade 3 The millions which he gives annually an-nually for the support of the protective sy tern are either appropriated by monopolies mo-nopolies already overpaid or are sunk absolutely in the losses of unwiie manufacturing manu-facturing experiments We reach tbe practical question what is the farmer oing to do about it Congress made the protective tariff Congress muet unmake ito it-o long as Congress is composed of protectionists just so long will the farmer be plundered Nay more So long as the representatives represent-atives of tno unprotected classes aro indifferent in-different while the representatives of the protected interests arc aggressive keen tied organized just so long will the farmer be made the victim Tho unprotected masses havo the remedy rem-edy in their own hands Their voters number 8000 000 those of the protected classes only 2000000 The victims havo an overwhelming majority But their representatives in Congress have been indifferent Indifference must ba allowed no longer The formers representative must be alive on this issue Republican or democrat he must not bo permitted to evade this question neither to play fast and loose with it lbs party name must not servo asa cloak either to him who would bttray the farmer outright orto him who would stand calmly by while the thieves do their work Let him be what else he may the farmers far-mers representative must ha a free trader There lies the remedy Hake the fight in the congressional districts Is this man a protectionist Vote him down Vote for tbe free trader Are you ft republican Vole for tho free trader Aro you m democrat Vote for the free trader Tho politicians are quiet to learn The next canvass Trill bring out free trade candidates in both parties Either that or a new political division with free trade as the chief issue In either caso the end is certain Protection Pro-tection is wrong It can only live in the darn Turn upon it the light of earnest discussion and it will die Freo trade is right and must prevail But he prefaces them in tbe cogent reasoning and abundant illustration This is his OUTLINE The protectionist starts with a gross assumption which he does not attempt to prove namely that the tremendous natural advantages of the United States are not enough to sustain manufactures He Fays it is necessary to ward off foreign for-eign competition In other words it Is necessary he declare de-clare to grant tile American manufacturer manufac-turer the privilege of extorting an advance ad-vance over the market prico of his goods This therefore is the protective syt tern on the showing of its own advocates American manufactures are not really remunerative they are losing enterprises let the tariff enables the manufacturer to extort from the American consumer a bonus over the natural prico of the goods and so over his losses and mako a profit The direct purpose of these pages is to how J That protective system is paid for chiefly by the farmer 2 That the farmer gets nothing for his money Incidentally they aro intended to bring out these truths 1 That so far from benefiting him tbe I protective system cuts down tho farmers export trade 2 That the millions paid annually by the farmer for prelection arc either wasl din d-in unprofitable manufacturing efforts or swept into the coffers of overpaid monop olism One of his most concise and telling chapters termed The Tax Juggle in which he says Let us simplify Suppose we havo a community consisting of shatter a shoemaker shoe-maker and a farmer The farmer hoes hit own row asking odds of nobody but the hatter and the shoemaker demand a bonus of 50 a year each How on the protection plan will they get it It would be too barefaced a steal to levy a tax on the farmer alone Tney will not do that Avoiding the appearance of unjust discrimination they will put a tax on all consumers of hatsand shoe they will mace all purchasers of hats and shoes contribute alike to the protection fund Voy fair this looks but mark the singular result The hatt r pays 350 a you to foster the shoo industry The Ehoemakar pays 50 a year to foster fos-ter the hat industry i A Those two transactions oalanco each other Neither the batter nor the shoemaker shoe-maker are out of pocket a penny Bat the farmer Ho pays to foster the hat industry a11 to f stor the shoo industry indus-try He receivesnothing His industry is not fostered There it is in a nutshell Tho protection protec-tion tax is laid on all alike But when tho books aro balanced the hatter and the shoemaker are in and the farmer is out Who is it that pays for protection I Any one may see that the firmer is out precsely what the other two are in and the rule that applies to these three individuals must apply to a whole community We should like if we had space to make further quotations indeed to reprint the whole of the pamphlet There ia a table ol the protective duties on the necessaries of life that would startle a farmers wheat crop out of a years growth and tho information infor-mation that besides what we pay to the government in duties we pay annually an-nually 750000000 to our manufacturing manufac-turing fellow citizens or at the rate of 15 for every man woman and child is enough to give us serious cause for reflection But this is not all It has already been shown that tho manufacturing interest merely takes money out of one pocket and puts it into another but tbe money that leaves the farmers pocket never comes back In 1870 tbe number of men and women engaged in farming occupations was 5992000 Supposing tho number to have increased to 7000000 Then the annual protection tax on these is 107 per capita I This 750000000 ii i not what the people peo-ple pay to the government be it clearly understood The government got by our revenue tariff about 150000000 The 3750000000 goes entirely to the protected classes With this quotation we dote our comment commending the subject to the careful attention of our raaderr I |