Show SOPHISTRY E EXPOSED THE FARMER AND LABORER RATTLE THE manufacturer ahey prove that protect ion lowers wages wa rt and ancl the prices of aarm prod products lets but increases tle the cost of manufactured tired good an proposition farmer why did you say you were nvere in favor of protective duties on manufactured goods manufacturer to keep the pauper made goods of euro europe e out of this country so that our own manufacturers while paying high wages and providing you yon farmers with big home maikels maik ets will bo be left free to compete with each other other and in this way to cheapen cost of our goods F yes I 1 see and do you yon also favor high deities on oil farm products to increase internal competition and lower prices AI 31 oh no all antics on wheat corn cotton pork and beef keep out foreign farm products and raise prices for you F but thercie there is no foreign competition in these products we export hundreds of millions of dollars worth of them thein every year besides you yell say that to cut 0 off foreign commet competition i tion reduces ices prices il ai yes of manufactured art articles acles but not of agricultural products thereisa there is a vast difference F I 1 confess that I 1 cant understand you but supposing your logic is sound why were prices of cotton wheat and corn under high duties lower lover in ili 1893 1891 than ever before while the prices of woolen goods tin plate cutlery guns pearl buttons and other manufactured goods under increased inci eased duties were higher than in ili previous pr eNious years M I 1 think you aro are mistaken but if prices of farm products were lower last year it must have been due to good crops F 1 beg your pardon crops were not so BO good as in 1691 when i rices wert were much higher M I 1 mean good crops abroad so that europe did not require so much of your grain and cotton F that is you admit that it is 13 tile the foreign demand that ft fixes prices of grains cotton and meats and not tar tariff iff duties at all 31 1 I admit nothing of the kind but I 1 1 dont care to discuss the question further you have been reading henry george or some other free trade theorist until you would prefer to see eng england land prosper rather than your own a country F 17 1 I prefer to prosper myself rather than to be heavily taxed for the benefit of the tariff protected trusts which make millionaires of you manufacturers and once for all let me say that I 1 am done dona with your bogus protection to farmers aswell as well as real protection to manufacturers you cant play your sawdust bunko game on us any longer good day laborer did I 1 not hear you say that you favor protection so that you can pay high wages manufacturer certainly yes protection always lowers prices except in the case of farm products as I 1 have just explained L 1 I can understand thatis that if protection raises prices you can afford to pay higher wages 0 though it bould be optional with yourself whether you would do so or not but how can low prices enable you to pay high wa wages ai M simply by protecting us and our workmen from the pauper made goods of europe L lt it might protect you but it could not protect I 1 your workmen as you call them for if it really raised wages here there is no tariff to prevent european laborers from coming over here to compete with us and lower wages again il you are begin beginning nin to theorize just like that old hayseed that made me so 60 tired just now protection is not a theory Itis it is practical this is the most prosperous country on the globe and it is all duo due to protection L I 1 know it is prosperous cious it has bagg more millionaires than any other country and more tramps also perhaps perli aps dut but I 1 begin to think that our prosperity is due to our fertile and cheap lands which keep wages high to our republican foroi form of government bur our freedom from standing armies and the fact that this is the greatest free trade country in ili the world there being absolute freedom of exchange between all of the baates and territories and each state on in an average being larger than the countries of western europe al but you certainly would not have free trade between countries L there has a always been f free reo trade sn in labor all the poor man lias has to sell how could it injure him to have free trade in goods what ho he has to buy rico free trade would protect the poor man by giving him the most for his labor just as high duties protect the rich manufacturer by giving him higher prices for his goo goods Is do the rich need protection more than the poor M you ire are worse than the farmer for you advocate socialism and anarchy and think wo we have become rich by rob liing tho the poor and are not entitled to our wealth L no ko not exactly that but I 1 take you for a business man and think you are more anxious to buy labor low and to sell goods high than to buy high and is cell rIllow low if legislators and politicians could be bribed and people hoodwinked that is as much their fault M such talk is un american and treasonable and I 1 will hear no more of it tile tho government is going to the dogs as fast as it can because the democratic party is ia full of such anarchistic agitators as you good day sir L we rather rattled that manufacturer F its time lies iles had us ns rattled for SO 30 years L so and I 1 suppose ho he thinks wo we are as aa big chumps as ev ever cr but lie still has tho drop on oil us for b he has plenty of money to live on to educate exis his children children with mid and to start them in business F youre quite right ho he can live hye off of tho the interest which we must pay on the mortgages on our farms and homes L D you know ive been thinking lately tely tant thero aro are better ways for bomis r alls inga ing a revenue than by tariff duties why not got get a revenue liy by an income an inheritance or a land value tax F do you yon think they would lo be 10 easier on us poor devils L I 1 do while wo nye collect revenues from duties on oil goods the poor who cat anil and wear near nearly lyas a much as the rich will always pay nine tenths of tile because thero there ire aro poor persons persona to every rich one with duties on oil big incomes and inheritances the rich would pay all and would v then return to tho the government a part of what they aided by the alio government took from us F that certainly seems fair BYRON W nolt |