Cornell University Library 
 HF2601.H66 
 
 The Canadian agreement as related to the 
 
 3 1924 014 100 162 
 
THE CANADIAN AGREEMENT AS RELATED TO THE FARM HOME 
 AND COST OF LIVING IN CITIES. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. ASHER C. HINDS, 
 
 OF IiIAINE, 
 
 In the House of Representatives, 
 Saturday, Ai)ril 15, 1911. 
 
 The riouso being in Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Uuion and hay. 
 Ing under consideration the bill (EI. R. AiVZ) to promote reciprocal trade relations witil 
 the Dominion of Canada, and for other purposes — 
 
 Mr. HINDS said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : I can not remove from my mind tlie firm conviction tliat tlie 
 policy proposed in this bill is of an importance out of all proportion to the 
 scantiness of the investigation which has preceded it. The farmers of this 
 Nation are more than a third of its people, and whatsoever affects the basis of 
 their industries affects all. I know how hard it is to bring tlie realization of 
 this fact home to those who dwell in great cities, especially to those who con- 
 trol stupendous industrial and commercial interests, beside which a farm of 
 150 acres seems an inconsiderable enterprise. Even the great intellect of Horace 
 Greeley succumbed to the prevailing delusion, if we may credit the statement 
 of the brilliant eulogist of Lincoln who said that Horace Greeley thought him- 
 self a bigger man than Abraham Lincoln because he lived in a bigger town. 
 But I am convinced that if the dwellers in cities will look below the surface of 
 this question they will see that it does not concern the farmer alone. If in 
 what I am to say I shall seem to speak of him entirely, it is because his industry 
 is at the foundation of our prosperity, and in speaking of him I speak of all. 
 The dwellers in cities can not disassociate their interest from that of the 
 farmers. Diminish the purchasing power of the American farmer and you 
 diminish by so much the prosperity of every city and of every laborer, clerk, 
 merchant, and banker within its limits. 
 
 A hundred and twenty-flve years ago, when our fathers were first agitating 
 the question of a tariff, the New York Chamber of Commerce reminded the 
 opposing farmers that agriculture could not flourish without commerce. To-day 
 the uierchant and manufacturer may well be reminded that commerce and 
 manufactures are not likely to flourish without a successful agriculture. 
 
 THE QPESTION TO BE AliGUED ON BROAD NATIONAL GROUNDS. 
 
 The question is too great and important to be argued on anything but broad 
 national grounds. Grievously as this bill affects industries of the State of 
 Maine, I am not here to argue that it affects Maine more than it affects every 
 other State In the North or in the South, in the East or in the West. In Jlaine 
 we see more clearly because we are nearer the conditions, but if the gentlemen 
 of the Democratic Party succeed in carrying this bill through this House and 
 this Congress, its ultimate effects on the economic and social life of this Nation 
 must be such that Maine will be neither the loudest nor the most inconsolable in 
 Iier lamentations. 
 
 I do not mean to say by this that the challenges which are ringing out from 
 the States bordering on Canada are to be disregarded. T\'hen the sentries on 
 the picket line begin to challenge and fire it behooves the whole army to take 
 notice. 
 
 BURDENS AND BENEFITS NOT JUSTLY APPORTIONED. 
 
 The manner in which this bill distributes its supposed benefits and its un- 
 doubted hardships violates mankind's fundamental idea of justice and equity. 
 89G73— 0S2S 
 
Since the dawn of time, tlirongh all mytliologies and religions, man has ex- 
 pressed his inborn idea that to those who have the suffering and self-denial 
 should come the bliss of the better world, the peace of the Elysian fields, the 
 joj' of the golden streets. That is real reciprocity. But this bill introduces 
 into that ancient, instinctive idea of equity, a new principle ; that one class of 
 citizens is to hs-'e the sacrifices, while another class enjoys the rewards. The 
 dairyinoii of Kew York and Ohio are to treafl the earthly pathway of self-denial, 
 and in reward the makers of barbed-wire fencing are to roam the Elyshm fields 
 [laughter] ; the wheat farmers of the Dakotas are to keep the long vigil of 
 unrestricted competition, and in return the automobile makers of Detroit are 
 to speed over the streets of gold ; the fishermen of Gloucester who keep watch 
 and watch with death on the banks of Newfoundland are to surrender their 
 market, and ia return the Connecticut clock makers are to set up their time- 
 pieces in the realms of bliss, where a thousand years are but as a day ; the 
 potato farmer of Maine or Michigan is to have the troubles of Lazarus, but 
 the maker of harvesting machines is to rest his head on the bosom of Abraham. 
 [Laughter and applause.] One class sows that another may reap, and you call 
 it reciprocity. 
 
 Names count for much with us, and the names of Blaine and McKinley are 
 being used to commend this proposition. There is no warrant for this. In 
 his youth, in 1864, as a Member of this House, Mr. Blaine voted to repeal an 
 arrangement with Canada far better than the one proposed now, since it gave 
 free coal, which this does not. And in his later days Mr. Blaine in his Twenty 
 Years of Congress referred to that reciprocity as " one-sided, vexatious, and 
 unprofitable." Mr. McKinley made the very tariff duties which you are now 
 trying to sweep away; and, like Mr. Blaine, never favored reciprocity in com- 
 peting products. 
 
 FREE THADH IN FARM PRODUCTS REVERSES THE POLICY OF A CEXTURT. 
 
 The broad proposition which is before us is that tariff duties levied on our 
 borders against commodities produced by foreign people be swept away, so far 
 as the principal and practically the only competitors of our farmers are affected. 
 We are giving the farmer free trade and are pleading in justification that it 
 will not hurt him and will help the consumer. If these two iMeas are consistent 
 and truthful, well and good. If either or both he fallacious, we must know it. 
 
 One significant fact may arouse in our minds a suspicion that we are wrong 
 in removing the protection from the farmer's products. Protection for the 
 farmer is an old national policy coeval with the Constitution itself. In 1789 
 living was simple. There were not many food products of the farm that could 
 be Imported- Totatoes were raised abroad only in limited quantities. The 
 peasantry of France still believed them poisonous. The bread eaten by the 
 American people was principally made of Indian corn, wheaten bread appearing 
 on the table only when the minister came. But there was one foreign article 
 that could compete in our markets — cheese. And the statesmen of 1789 put a 
 duty of 4 cents a pound on cheese. For a hundred and twenty-five years, with 
 few intervals, there has been a tariff on cheese, usually 4 cents a pound, in 1816 
 as high as 8 sents. Under the Democratic Wilson tariff it was 4 cents, to-day 
 it la 8 cents. Our fathers made it 4 cents when the nearest competition was 
 3,000 miles away, over an ocean. Freight ran into dollars and weeks. To-day 
 our tariff on cheese is only 6 cents a pound, and one of the great cheese-making 
 countries of the world is separated from our markets only by a few cents and 
 a few hours. 
 
 You propose to reverse the policy of a hundred and twenty-five years and give 
 us, not lower duties, but free trade with our only competitor, not only in cheese, 
 but in all the principal farm products. Many of us have hoped for a reason- 
 able, symmetrical tariff on manufactured goods founded on scientifically ac- 
 quired information. How can that ever be if we are to proceed against the 
 farmer with this crude violence? 
 
 LONG ESriSLISHED POLICY SHOULD BE REVERSED ONLY AFTER CAREFUL EXAMINATION. 
 
 I am not one of those who believe that a policy should always continue be- 
 cause it has continued a century and a quarter. Because butter, wheat, oats, 
 and potatoes were protected in 1824 Is not in Itself a reason why they should 
 be protected now. Because even the Democratic tariff makers in 1857 and again 
 in 1894 considered it wise to give the farmers a substantial protection is not a 
 compelling reason to constrain our acts here and now. But when wise men 
 
 89673—0828 
 
and partially wise men in certain situations have at different times reasoned 
 out tbe same line of action, what they have done has attained great authority 
 and dignity. Statesmen and jurists have used their acts as the mariner uses the 
 lighthouse. They have been disregarded only after the fullest investigation 
 and the most mature deliberation. 
 
 To-day and here, however, we are brushing aside the experience of our past. 
 We are disregarding the progressive. and enlightened conclusions of statesman- 
 ship in Germany, France, and England and are doing this great thing without 
 investigation worthy the name. 
 
 One night the States-General of France voted a liing off the throne and 
 changed the order of society. That stands as the great precedent of precipitate 
 legislative action. But the people of France had read, studied, and pondered for 
 nearly 10 years the Eed Booli of Neclcer, wherein the greatest finance minister 
 of the age had set forth the state of the nation. You are proposing to-day a 
 great new policy that goes to the very social fabric of America, and where is the 
 great committee of this House that has probed to the bottom of it, and where 
 is the booli that has spread its investigations before the American people? 
 
 , THE NECESSITY OF ACCDHATE REASONING ON THIS QUESTION. 
 
 To many this thing seems simple. Because Canada has New World conditions 
 which, generally spealting, are lilie our own, therefore there can bo no harm 
 in letting her agricultural products compete in our marljets. That seems 
 IJlausible, and it has the ear of the American people to-day, because we have 
 always thought of tariffs as applying chiefly to manufactures. But right here 
 let us stop and examine, for here is the fork of the road. 
 
 It was my good fortune once to hear from the gallery of the English House 
 of Commons a debate on the management of English railways. And one 
 plausible orator, with much confidence of assertion, declared that statistics 
 showed the loss of life to be far greater on American roads than on English. 
 From this he deduced conclusions unfavorable to American sliill and capacity. 
 But a member from the Government bench ans^vered him ; I do not know the 
 name or the rank of that modest, well-poised gentleman. I have no doubt 
 he had been trained in one of those two great universities where the scholars 
 of England — greater than her Wellingtons and her Kelsons — have for a thou- 
 sand years taught the youtli of England to search for and know the truth. 
 Taking up the statements so detrimental to the "United States, so flattering 
 to English pride, he admitted that the statistics did show a greater loss of life 
 on American railroads, but he pointed out that America was a very great 
 country ; that many thousand miles of her road had been extended hastily 
 in sparsely populated regions. It was to be expected that there would be 
 great loss of life on such roads. But in the older settled East, where fixed 
 conditions prevailed, the loss of life was so little as to show that American 
 skill and capacity were not to be compared unfavorably with English. I do 
 not recount this narrative to read any lesson to the brilliant and discriminating 
 intellects in this Hall. I do it merely for the sake of the argument I am 
 about to make, to arrest your attention, especially the attention of the Demo- 
 cratic majority before it pushes home this blow at the prosperity of the farmer 
 and the social life of the Nation. 
 
 GEEAT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE FAEM HOME AND THE rACTOIlT. 
 
 The fact that Canada has New World conditions, that her labor is not crushed 
 down as in the older countries, furnishes, I will admit, a fair argument that 
 you might with safety remove the duties on manufactured goods in the future 
 when conditions of labor shall have equalized. The argument, then, may 
 some day be sound when applied to factories. Is it sound when applied to 
 farms? 
 
 No; and for this reason, that the farm is primarily not a factory, 'but a home. 
 
 Capitalists gather up money, build mills, call in laborers, and turn out prod- 
 uct for the main purpose of paying dividends on the capital they have 
 gathered up. 
 
 The farmer acquires land that he may found a home. 
 
 It is not the lack of bricks, machinery, or factory sites that checks the ex- 
 pansion of factories, but the disappearance of dividends. 
 
 The expansion of farms ceases only when there is no more land under the 
 western sun. 
 
 89G73— 982S 
 
Dividends are tlie fundamental condition of manufactures. 
 
 Areas of land for liomes are tlie fundamental condition of agriculture. 
 
 If the factory's product falls in price below the dividend-producing line, the 
 factory shuts down to wait for better times. The building of new factories Is 
 discouraged. 
 
 Did any of you gentlemen ever hear of the farms shutting down as factories 
 shut down because the bottom fell out of the market for their products? We 
 heard that the farmers of Kansas once burned their corn when they could not 
 sell it. But farming went on, because the homes could not stop. 
 
 When cotton goods fall in the market, the cotton mills curtail production 
 and save loss by running fewer weeks in the year. 
 
 When the farmer's products fall In the market, he must produce not less 
 but more, because the expense of the home must be met. 
 
 Manufactures, organized by trusts and gentlemen's agreements, easily control 
 output and prevent overproduction. 
 
 Farmers, by the necessities of their condition, are controlled in their pro- 
 duction only by the Almighty's dispensation of sunshine and rain. 
 
 The farm is evidently to be distinguished from the factory. And may we 
 not make a blunder — a great blunder such as Napoleon said was worse than a 
 crime — If In our reasoning here we apply to the agricultural schedule of our 
 tarlfE the same formulas that we apply to the manufacturing schedule? [Ap- 
 plause on the Republican side.] 
 
 At this point let us guard against a confusion of thought. I am not trying 
 to show that farming creates homes and manufacturing does not. But In 
 manufacturing the homes are the Incident, not the object. A corporation with 
 a thousand employees curtails production without responsibility as to its effect 
 on the families of those employees. The human-life necessities do not Impel 
 an overproduction disastrous to the market. But when we turn to agriculture, 
 the human-life necessities do that very thing. It Is because of this that we must 
 vary our accustomed formulas if we would not work a fearful havoc when 
 we deal with the agricultural schedule. 
 
 INDEPENDENCE OF THE IT.MIM HOME AND ITS RELATION TO MANUFACTUIIBS. 
 
 A century ago the farm home was more preeminently the unit of civilization 
 than to-day. It was almost independent within Itself. The father and sons 
 tilled the fields, cared for the cattle, and especially the sheep, while the mother 
 and daughters kept the house and spun and wove the clothing. The daughters 
 were the spinsters, and to this day an unmarried woman, whether she dwell 
 in humble cottage or princely castle, is a spinster — living monument of the 
 old independence of the farm home. In process of time the factory has taken 
 over the family industries, as well as most of the village trades. The farmer 
 and his family devote themselves to the simpler products, the raw materials; 
 and after their own food supply is secure, must sell enough surplus to pay for 
 the manufactured goods, professional services, and so forth, which are needed 
 to satisfy their wants and tastes. It is obvious that if all in the world were 
 farmers, there would be no people to buy the surplus. It is evident, then, 
 that there must be other people, not engaged in farming, to buy and consume 
 this surplus of the farmer, else he will be unable to purchase manufactured 
 articles. It seems most consistent with reason that these other people who 
 are to purchase the farmer's surplus should be his own neighbors, or, at least, 
 of his own Nation or region, and especially those of his neighbors who are 
 engaged in manufacturing the very articles which he needs to buy. And it Is 
 evident that both farmers and artisans will be most prosperous and the hap- 
 piest when there are enough farmers to take the artisan's goods at a fair price, 
 and enough artisans, professional men, and so forth, to take the farmer's 
 surplus at a fair price. 
 
 EQUILIBEinSl BETWEEN AGRICULTURE AND MANUITACTURES. 
 
 This brings us to the question of proportion, or equilibrium, of manufacturecl 
 and agricultural products. And it is right here on this point that the whole 
 situation likely to be created by this reciprocity treaty develops itself. Our 
 manufactures, syndicated as they are by trusts and associations, are easily 
 controllable and do not tend to run into an overproduction, disastrous to profits 
 on capital or the wages of labor. But the farms, being an aggregation of homes, 
 disorganized, and each impelled by its own necessities, tend constantly to over- 
 
 89673—0828 
 
produce. And this overproduction becomes disastrous unless the limitation of 
 acreage possible to be cultivated intervenes to prevent. Therefore the element 
 of prime importance In this discussion is the relation of acreage to the capacity 
 of the home market furnished by the nonagricultural classes. 
 
 Of this doctrine of the equilibrium of the home market we have heard little 
 among English-speaking peoples, because England hopelessly destroyed the 
 equilibrium of her home market when, as a result of the stimulation of the 
 Napoleonic wars, she got more people into manufacturing than her acres, in the 
 opinion of a dominating school of her statesmen, could possibly feed, even 
 under the highest development of her agriculture. Then she felt forced to open 
 her markets to the agricultural products of the vs-orld. We, who found our 
 market in her necessities, have not examined her situation. But England her- 
 self is awakening, and in 1006, after exhaustive investigations, her tarift' com- 
 mission made a significant report. There has been, that report says^ 
 
 a broad contrast between tbe policy adopted by foreign countries and that adopted by 
 tbe United Kingdom, Generally spealting, all foreign and European countries accept as 
 the basis of tbeir economic policy the necessity for maintaining a flourishing agriculture. 
 This is partly due to economic reasons, partly to considerations of national defense and 
 security. The result, speaking generally, is that tliesc countries, instead of pursuing an 
 exclusively manufacturing or an exclusively agrarian policy, have endeavored to main- 
 tain a balance between agriculture and manufactures. 
 
 "A balance between agriculture and manufactures ! " Have any of us studied 
 it before plunging into this great departure from the pathway traced by the 
 instincts of our statesmen for a century and a quarter? 
 
 GELATION OF THE EQUILIBRIUM TO NATIONAL POWER AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 " Consideration of national defense and security ! " Have any of us studied 
 the relations of agriculture to that great subject? We have thought of battle- 
 ships and forts and have registered our thoughts in billion-dollar marks. 
 
 Have we forgotten that the farm home is the greatest nursery of men and 
 women that a nation has? When Bismarck turned from free trade to protection 
 and established Germany's agricultural duties, he did it on the ground of the 
 salvation of the Prussian State and the German Empire. [Applause on the 
 Eepublican side.] Wealth and factories are great assets of a nation, I grant 
 you. I hope we and our neighbors will always have an abundance of both ; but 
 if we look over the history of our race in the parent country for the long course 
 of time the word that comes oftenest from the pens of historians and the tongues 
 of orators is not " wealth " or " factories," but " yeomanry." From Crecy to 
 the Crimea, and on to this day, the yeomanry of England have been her proud- 
 est boast. And when the statesmen who but recently formed England's tariff 
 commission came to examine the condition of the realm one of their most 
 striking recommendations was a duty on agricultural products as an important 
 means of encouraging small farmers — men of the yeoman class. 
 
 Do you remember what the Boer War revealed to England? That her mili- 
 tary recruits were undersized and that their vitality was lowered by the condi- 
 tions of crowded city life. Well may her statesmen have turned their eyes 
 backward to those stalwart farmer boys, the yeoman archers of England, who 
 laid low the mailed chivalry of Prance, or those other country boys, stalwart 
 in form and stern of conscience, whose valor at Dunbar and Worcester com- 
 mended their leader to immortal fame and their model of organization to 
 English-speaking soldiers for 250 years. And so the English statesmen — be- 
 thinking themselves of valor as well as of trade — recommended a tariff on 
 agricultural products. [xVpplause on the Eepublican side.] 
 
 That is what English statesmen recommended after investigation and study. 
 What you propose to do here and now is to tear down American agricultural 
 duties after neither investigation nor study. [Applause on the Eepublican side.] 
 
 \ HOW THE EQUILIBEIUSI Or THE FARMERS' MARKET WAS LOST. 
 
 Since other nations have thought it worth while to study the equilibrium 
 of the farmers' market, it may be worth our time to halt for a moment the 
 speedy onward course of this Ijill and reflect on it ourselves. It concerns all, 
 the proudest city and the smallest town. It overrides all consideration of 
 special profits or losses that we may think we see in this agreement. 
 
 Up to 1850 this equilibrium between agriculture and the home market was 
 maiutaiued the world over, because transportation was still costly on land and 
 sea, and agricultural products, being bulky, were restrained by the cost of 
 80673— 9S28 
 
freight from floocTing any particular market. But from 1S50 onward the appli- 
 cation of steam to land and water transportation revolutionized the economic 
 condition of the world, and soon brought to the front one great and all- 
 controlling economic phenomenon — the opening of the broad and fertile prairies 
 of the western United States. 
 
 Farm products began to iJy through space and hurl themselves upon far- 
 distant places in unheard-of quantities. This was especially so with farm 
 products raised on new lands, under the stimulus of nature's stored-up fertility. 
 In 1878 the fast-freight and refrigei-ator car came into activity, and the dairy- 
 man of the ^^'est was constructively moved up to the door of the eastern farmer, 
 and the two went merrily to work to make one another poor with overcompeti^ 
 tion. The equilibrium of the market between the farmer's surplus and the 
 artisan's product, from being constant and sure, under the eyes of all, became a 
 flighty and inconstant thing, doing unexpected acts in response to distant voices. 
 That a German farmer on the sands of Brandenburg should find the conditions 
 in the little market town where his fathers had resorted for three centuries 
 turned upside down by some farmers on a River Platte in a land called Ne- 
 braska, thousands of miles distant under the westward sun, was a phenomenon 
 astounding and portentous. "Well may it have driven Bismarck, Imbued with 
 the free-trade theories of the universities and sharing the prejudices of the 
 country squires of Germany against manufactures, from the free-trade to the 
 protection camp. [Applause on the Republican side.] 
 
 EFITBCTS OF THE DISTURBANCE OF THE AMERICAN" FARMERS' MARKET, ESPECIALLY IN NEW, 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 The markets of four great communities afford us an instructive lesson as to 
 the effects of this phenomenon : The eastern United States, England, Germany, 
 and France. Kastern United States, North and South, being in the same Nation 
 with the new lands, met the flood of cheap products under free-trade conditions 
 as it fell with full force in the years between 1870 and 1890. Many men in this 
 Hall remember the dearth it produced. The Tariff Board, in its brief contribu- 
 tion to this subject, refers to it. If, in illustrating it, I refer to New England, 
 it is only because I am most familiar with that region. 
 
 In New England this destruction of his markets brought the farmer a great 
 revolution and a long dearth. The measure of that dearth is found in the 
 values of farms and farm buildings in those six States. When agriculture has 
 a fair chance, farm values ought to increase. The accumulations of industry 
 ought to result in permanent improvements, the betterment of buildings, the 
 fertilization of the land. What was the case? The total value of the farm 
 realty of New England in isiio was very little more than it had been in 1860, 
 30 years before. In those 30 years that splendid race of farmers practically 
 stood still, and $20,000,000 measures the only increase in the value of their 
 property. From 1890 to 1900 the increase was nearly i?10,000,000, and from 
 1900 to" 1910. when the equilibrium of markets was restored, the increase was 
 over $17(1.000,000. [Applause on the Republican side.] I dwell on this feature 
 of the equilibrium of markets because the percentage of this increase bears a 
 striking resemblance to that between 1850 and 1860, when the old equilibrium 
 existed. 
 
 The following table, prepared by the Census Bureau, tells as eloquently as 
 columns of figures can the story of the long dearth on New England farms and 
 the long halt of 30 years : 
 
 Aicrugc value of land, 'buUiVings, ami oilier improvements per farm for each 
 Slate from 1S50 to 1910. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Maine. 
 
 New 
 Hamp- 
 shire. 
 
 Vermont. 
 
 MEissa- 
 cliuseUs. 
 
 Hhode 
 Island. 
 
 Connec- 
 ticut. 
 
 
 $3,798 
 2,753 
 2,679 
 2,802 
 3,240 
 2,589 
 2,222 
 
 S2,C59 
 1, 628 
 1,690 
 1,601 
 1,722 
 1,413 
 1,173 
 
 S3, 176 
 2,392 
 2,270 
 2,:j(i7 
 2,719 
 2,286 
 1,181 
 
 83,442 
 2.510 
 2,473 
 3,078 
 4,120 
 2,980 
 2,129 
 
 $5,2.38 
 4,189 
 3,710 
 3,806 
 4,393 
 3,462 
 3,202 
 
 $5,287 
 4,206 
 3,977 
 4,164 
 4,019 
 3,616 
 3,170 
 
 15,166 
 3,616 
 3,609 
 3,967 
 4,871 
 3,607 
 3,240 
 
 19Q0 
 
 
 1880 
 
 
 1$iiO 
 
 
 
 I One-fifth should be deducted for depreciated currency. 
 
 89673—9828 
 
THE DEACTU NOT PECULIAE TO NEW ENGLAWD. 
 
 While the effects of the long dearth were more pronounced in New England, 
 perhaps, than elsewhere, yet in the whole North Atlantic Division, which 
 includes New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, as well as New England, 
 in 30 years, from 1860 to 1890, the value of farms and farm buildings increased 
 only two-thirds as much as it had in the single decade from 1850 to ISGO under 
 normal markets. 'Jhis North Atlantic Division of the United States shows 
 the effect of the opening of new lands on the old lands as no other section of 
 the "United States could do at this time. With the best home market in Auferica 
 in their midst, with the much-vaunted world's market of Europe nearer to them 
 than to any other farmers on this Continent, with the inherited appliances and 
 improvements belonging to established countries, the farmers of the North 
 Atlantic States could barely hold their own for 30 years. The West was the 
 , new and growing region ; she will figure as an old and settled country in the 
 new influx. So also will the South, which then did not notice, amid the ravages 
 of war, the minor ravages of competition. 
 
 Our Tariff Board, in its meager report on this vast subject — meager because 
 in the hot haste with which this House is moving there is no time for the 
 scientific examination which I believe Mr. Emery and his associates would 
 make so well — comments on one fact which it has found, but on the vast 
 significance of which it has had no time to dwell. It says of the most flourish- 
 ing Canadian Province — Ontario : 
 
 Ontario, while reporting the higliest Canadian land value, shows the lowest Canadian 
 rate ol increase. It is worthy of note that Ontario is fooling the competition of western 
 Canada, just as some years ago the eastern part of the United States felt the competition 
 of our western lands. 
 
 The farmers of Ontario are already losing the equilibrium of their markets. 
 All eastern Canada will soon be in the throes of it. And we are now proposing 
 to tear down our ancient dikes and invite the flood to roll over us. [Applause 
 on the Republican side.] 
 
 The New England farmer saved himself by courage and intelligence. The 
 census shows that of the 12,000,000 acres of improved land in the six States in 
 1860 only 7,000,000 acres remain improved. But the ofiicials of the Census 
 Bureau advise me that a difference in methods of classification of improved 
 laud accounts for much of the difference. Yet, undoubtedly, there has been 
 some decline. Take as an example, and not an extreme example, the State of 
 Maine. " The acreage of improved laud increased steadily until 1880," says the 
 census report, " when a marked decline began, and in 1900 the percentage of 
 farm land improved was smaller than ever before reported." And the Director 
 of the Census went on to specify as one of the causes of this " the competition 
 of western lands in cereal production." 
 
 After an agonizing struggle the New England farmer moved to a new base. 
 He ceased to raise beef and sheep, he went out of wheat and' the cereals, and 
 became a dairyman, a grower of fruits, and a market gardener. He lessened 
 his acreage, but kept in the business, for the farm is a home and is hostage of 
 fate for the farmer in bad as well as good times. And to-day the census of 
 1910 shows that there are over 3,000 more farms in New England than there 
 were in 1860. On a new basis that splendid race of farmers are reversing the 
 decadence of two generations. And just in the hour of victory the statesmen 
 of America, without scientific investigation, with hardly a hearing that deserves 
 the name, propose to turn loose on them the competition of a new empire. 
 [Applause on the Republican side.] 
 
 Can not the gentlemen on the Democratic side of this I-Iouse see how futile 
 a plan it is to bring on the American farmer the destruction of equilibrium in 
 his markets and then expect to recompense hiin by lowering the duties on a 
 few of the things he buys? You bring upon him a colossal calamity and then 
 propose to salve his wounds with commercial percentages. You destroy his 
 business and then pretend to cheapen the tools with which he carries it on. 
 [Applause on the Republican side.] 
 
 SIMILAR EFFECTS IN THE ENGLISH FARMER'S MARKET. 
 
 England also met the deluge under free-trade conditions. What happened 
 is succinctly stated by Mr. James J. Hill in his new work, Highways of 
 Progress : 
 
 Agriculture in England — -. 
 89673—0828 
 
He says^ 
 
 has suffered in the last 25 years by the openlnfj of new land in America and the cheapen- 
 ing of the world's transportation. 
 
 The English tariff commission gives in 1006 the same report : 
 
 The causes of the decline In atrriciiltmc are world-wide in their operation, affecting all 
 Importing countries. The striking feature in the case of the United Kingdom is that 
 agriculture has been more depressed than in any other country and more depressed than 
 any other branch of economic activity. During the last 25 years the course of all agri- 
 cultural prices has been the same downward direction, with the result that agriculture 
 has been subject to a great combination of causes, all tending toward its depression. 
 
 And, most significant of all, that commission goes on to say : 
 
 European countries generally have pursued a policy involving import duties on agri- 
 cultural produce, whereas in the United Kingdom agriculturisis have been subject to the 
 unrestricted importation of foreign produce on terms not dissimilar, in many eases, from 
 those experienced by manufacturers who complain of dumping. 
 
 These dry official statements give little of the tragedy of England's position. 
 Forty thousand of her acres went out of culture last year. In the county of 
 Buckingham farms sell as low as $C3 an acre. 
 
 Buckingham County is about 30 miles from London and halfway between 
 London and Birmingham. JMany railroads connect it with both those cities. 
 London is that great world's market that is dangled so temptingly before our 
 farmers when some one wants to trade shadow for substance with them. Lon- 
 don Is the great capital of trade and commerce. It is also a capital of want 
 and ruisery. The rise and fall of her tide of paupers is recorded in the journals 
 as we record the prospects of a wheat crop. They are a host greater than 
 the army that held with Meade the' heights over Gettysburg. How could it 
 be otherwi.se when the virgin soil of New Zealand and Canada can put out of 
 business English farmers within 30 miles of the world's market? 
 
 Dairy and grazing farms in Surrey sell for $123 an acre. Surrey is near 
 London, and London is the world's great market for milk, butter, and cheese. 
 But that market is not the English farmer's market. The Canadians, the New 
 Zealanders, and the Danes possess it. Do you wonder that the English tariff 
 commission recommends a duty on butter and cheese? 
 
 HOW THE GERMAN FARMERS ESCAPED THE TROUBLES OF THE AMERICAN AND ENGLISH 
 
 FARMERS. 
 
 As we turn from England and her sad picture, we find another story in Geri 
 many and France, where statesmen and people united to preserve the equilib- 
 rium of the home market. I will quote again from Mr. James J. Hill's book, 
 because Mr. Hill, one of the world's great captains of industry, is an unrivaled 
 observer of economic facts. I wish that at this .iuncture his farm were bigger 
 than his railroad, for where a man's treasure is there is his heart also, 
 [Laughter.] Mr. Hill says: 
 
 How to meet German competition is to-day the study of every intelligent leader of 
 Industry and every cabinet on the Continent of Europe. It will be found that a large 
 share of her worldwide success is due to symmetrical national development. Agricultural 
 Industry has not been slighted. Behold a contrast that throws light upon the idle 
 host of England's unemployed marching despondently through streets whose shop win- 
 dows are crowded with wares of German make. Between 1S75 and 1900 in Great 
 Britain 2,001,428 acres which were under cereals and 755,255 acres which were under 
 green crops went out of cuUivatlon. In Germany, during the same period, the cultl« 
 vated area grew from 22,8-10,050 to 23,071,573 hectares, an Increase of 5 per cent. 
 
 The German farmer owes his proud position largely to the wisdom of Bis- 
 marck, a statesman of that school who investigate first and then act. Instead 
 of acting first and investigating afterwards. [Applause.] He had been a 
 free trader, but facts converted him, and in May, 1S70, he bore this testimony 
 in the Reichstag: 
 
 Is not the moment approaching when our agriculture will no longer be able to exist 
 because corn is pressed down to a price at which it can not be remuneratively produced 
 In Germany, taxation, the cost of living, and the cost of land bein" as they are' When 
 that moment comes, then not only agriculture but the Prussian State and the 'German 
 Empire will go to ruin as well. 
 
 And then and there the tariff duties of Germany on agricultural products 
 were established, and the trend of her policy has been to raise them and not 
 lower them. 
 
 89673—0828 
 
HAPPY POSITION OF THE FRENCn FARMEU UNDER PROTECTIOM. 
 
 In France we find the same lesson, yet France was menaced. " The trouble 
 In France, as elsewhere," writes Meredith, an English authority, " centered in 
 the persistent fall in the ))rices of agricultural produce, due in part to the 
 general appreciation of gold, but due principally to the cheapening of transport 
 and the appearance on the home marliet of transoceanic cereals and meat. The 
 result was the increased protection of agricultural products in 1SS5 and 1887 
 and the tariff of 1802." 
 
 Mr. Hill, who is inclined to free trade, does not in his book notice the protec- 
 tive legislation of France and Germany, but the prosperity of France's agri- 
 culture to-day he paints in the most brilliant colors. 
 
 TAKIFF ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS PROTECTS FROM TROUBLE. 
 
 It seems to me proved beyond a doubt that the opening of large areas of new 
 lands tends to destroy agriculture in the old lands, and that the wisest states- 
 manship of the world forfeuds this calamity by protective tariffs. 
 
 Wheu trouble comes to manufacturers, everyone — the statesman included — 
 knows it. The great capitalists are in these halls; idle workmen are on the 
 streets; outgoing steamers are crowded with foreign laborers returning home; 
 other laborers search new employment. Willing minds study remedies, for the 
 smoke no longer rises from the tall chimneys, the channels of trade dry up, and 
 all know that times are hard. It is a sad thing when manufacturers are in 
 trouble. 
 
 AVhen the long dearth comes to the farmer there are no spectacular accom- 
 paniments. He finds one day that his market has dropped below the line of 
 profit. He drives home sadly, searching his mind in vain for a cause that may 
 lie at the end of a railroad a thousand miles away, or 10,000 miles away across 
 two oceans. As prices continue low, he goes quietly to the local Pharaoh, and 
 soon the farmer holds the title and pays the taxes, while the Pharaoh holds 
 the mortgage and gets what little income there is, although there is not much 
 in It for even the Pharaoh. And so the long struggle goes on. When the 
 farmer's arm fails, the children take up the battle — the sou or the daughter. 
 When the trouble comes to the factory, the macliinery stops and the smoke 
 ceases to roll from the tall chimney. The smoke does not fail in the farmhouse 
 chimney, for on the hearth burns the oldest altar fire of the race. The farm 
 goes on through the long dearth, but the hardshii) is none the less great. 
 
 It is because of the insidious ills that come with the destruction of equi- 
 librium in the farmer's markets that legislative interference should be taken 
 only after careful inquiry. Those bulwarks which you to-day are proposing 
 to tear down without inquiry worthy of the name were last established by the 
 labors of three great men — William McKinley, President; Thomas B. Reed, 
 Speaker ; and Nelson Dingley, chairman of Ways and Means. [Applause.] In 
 a modest capacity I had the fortune to sit in their councils many times during 
 their seven years' battle. With the greatest care and the utmost caution they 
 raised the defenses of the farmer's market. They were wrong, you say. If 
 they were wrong, then the systematic and painstaking German statesmen are 
 wrong to-day. If they were wrong, then the philosophic statesmen of France 
 are wrong to-day. If they were wrong, then the tariff commission of England 
 toiled for years to search out truth only to produce error. Those three men had 
 visions that reached the future, but they never let their feet stray from the 
 highway of fact. 
 
 Agricultural prosperity was destroyed so long in the old-settled parts of this 
 country that we are regarding as something abnormal the recent advance. 
 There is, however, nothing abnormal about it. The West is coming to a normal" 
 condition of settlement; our wise tariff prevents foreign dumping; the natural 
 equilibrium of markets is restored. No one who examines can doubt this. 
 Prices — I mean those the farmer gets, not what the consumer pays — have been 
 dropping for the last year, indicating that there are no abnormal increases. 
 
 WHAT WILL CANADIAN COMPETITION DO? 
 
 We now confront the next great question : " Will the opening up of our 
 markets to Canadian farm products disturb this equilibrium and throw us 
 back into the old distress?" 
 
 89673—9828 
 
10 
 
 In otber words, will enougli Canadian farm products come over tlio line to 
 disturb disastrously our marlcets? There is a great chorus from the largo 
 cities that no trouble need be feared by the farmer, that the consumer will 
 pay about as much as ever, but that " trade relations " will be imioroved. But 
 while this chorus is going on some very shrewd gentlemen in Wall Street are 
 indulging in prophecy. The Canadian Pacific is the greatest railroad on the 
 North American Continent. It connects all Canada and runs into all the great 
 northern marl^ets of the United States. If great quantities of Canadian prod- 
 ucts are coming in, that road will do most of the hauling. The day the trade 
 agreement passed the House in March Canadian Tacitic stock touched the 
 highest point in it.s history, and it has been snaring ever since, in notable con- 
 trast most of the time to the American railroads. Some shrewd men ovidentl.v 
 think that some butter, cheese, cream, milk, hay, potatoes, apples, wheat, and 
 so forth, will come over the line. The situation recalls the story of the news- 
 paper reporter who went to And out whether an eminent clergyman was going 
 to accept a call to another city. " There is no decision about it," said the 
 daughter, who met the reporter at the door, " father is upstairs praying for 
 guidance, but mother is downstairs packing the trunks, so I guess we are going." 
 [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 I do not propose to dwell long on the statistics of present trade in farm pro- 
 duce over the border. It is small and proves nothing except that Canada sends 
 little here. But she sends much to England, and thereby proves that she could 
 send much to our nearer markets. 
 
 In l!J(.i'S when Canada was sending us only 2.3,000 dozen of eggs she was send- 
 ing England 1,200,000 dozen. While she has in the last five years sent to us an 
 average of less than 100.000 pounds of butter a year she has sent to England as 
 high as 33,000,000 pounds in a year. In the same five years she has sent us an 
 average of less than 150,000 pounds of cheese a year, but her normal annual 
 export to England was, until iS^ew Zealand began to shut her out, about 
 200,000,000 pounds. In 1900 she sent to us less than 20,000 barrels of apples, 
 but in the same year she sent to England more than 1,000,000 barrels. 
 
 When a Canadian farmer sends cheese to England he meets there the competi- 
 tion of all the world, and the competitor whom he has to watch the sharpest 
 is a man from the opposite side of the earth — the farmer of New Zealand. If the 
 barriers along our border were down, if the greatest and best home market on 
 earth was thrown open to his milk, cream, and butter, do you suppose the 
 Canadian farmer would toil to make cheese to compete with a New Zealauder 
 in a market on the other side of an ocean 3,000 miles wide? 
 
 CEL.VTION OF CKEGOIIT KIXG'S LAW TO THE IXPLUX OF CANADI.iN SUPFLIES. 
 
 Does anyone know how much produce will break our market? Has any com- 
 mittee of this House investigated this great problem before plunging ahead to 
 reverse the economic policy of a century and a quarter? We do not know on 
 this floor, but one thing v.'e can do is to examine the general nature of markets. 
 More than 200 years ago (Jregory King discovered the law of prices that bears 
 his name. That law which Prof. Thorold Rogers tells us " is not thought of ia 
 times of high and low prices as it should be " is as follows : 
 In tho commodity a deficit of — 
 
 1 tentli raises tlie price above the common-rate 3 tontha 
 
 2 tontlis rair^Po the price above the common rate ~ § tentlis 
 
 3 tenths raises the price above tlie common rate ~~ 10 tenths 
 
 4 tenths raises tho price above the common rate , 28 tenths 
 
 5 tenths raises the price above the common i-ate 45 tenths 
 
 And this law applies similarly to the effects of a surplus In lowering the price below 
 
 the common rate. 
 
 This law, called by a high authority " one of the most important generaliza- 
 tions in statistics," must not be neglected iu the vast problem before us to-day. 
 
 GEEGOEV KING'S LAW AS ILLUSTEATIXG THE POTATO SITDATIOX. 
 
 In connection ^^ith this law of Gregory King, the potato situation in the 
 United States is worth considering. While the consumer in the cities has 
 found potato prices high, the farmers know that potatoes have been low, around 
 2."i cents a bushel. Our own farmers have overstocked our own home'market 
 great as that is, our manufacturing industries alone disbursing to their officers 
 and employees, who are consumers, over $3,000,000,000 a year in salaries and 
 wages. Do you know how little of acreage participates in the overproduction 
 that knocks down the potato market — to the raoducer, not to the consumer 
 80CT3— 0S28 
 
11 
 
 necessarily? Potatoes are produced all over the United States to an extent 
 that meets a large proportion of the local demand, but 13 counties in what are 
 called the 5 potato States — Maine, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minne- 
 sota — make up the deficit and produce this year the one-tenth or two-tenths 
 of surplus, which, under Gregory King's law, drives down the price three- 
 tenths or eight-tenths. Our 13 counties are liable to overstock even our 
 magnificent home market, where $3,000,000,000 of industrial wages are floating 
 about, and our potato farmer prospers only because he gets good years in 
 with the bad. But add to our 13 counties the acreage of the great potato 
 Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec, with the hope of our 
 near-by home market to stimulate their farmers, and bad years must inevitably 
 be constant. Thelf whole surplus will pour over our line, because they have 
 no home market to absorb it. The industrial disbursements of those Provinces 
 are but little more than those of the little State of Rhode Island. 
 
 If you want to know the capacity of the potato land of New Brunswick, I 
 will cite you to the fact that the single Maine county of Aroostook, which lies 
 adjacent to New Brunswick and has similar land, produced in 1909 about one- 
 tenth of the entire potato crop of the United States. I understand that the 
 Legislature of New Brunswick, like the Legislature of Maine, has withheld 
 Its sanction from this trade agreement. Some gentlemen have thought this 
 strange. It seems to me that there Is nothing strange in it. If, under the glit- 
 tering lure of the American market, Canada develops her potato land — and 
 to-day she is not doing it, for want of a market — she will make the American 
 farmer poor and her own farmer poor, too. The destruction of the equilibrium 
 of our market will not in the end benefit her. When the western United 
 States farmer was flooding the cereal and dairy market of the eastern United 
 States, he did not prosper. Kansas appeared to bleed in those days as she 
 had never bled before. And the potato farmers of both Maine and New Bruns- 
 wick, who now have to pay millions of dollars annually for fertilizers, may 
 look with alarm to that rich virgin soil of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and 
 Alberta, where the few straggling pioneer farmers in that vast domain pro- 
 duced In 1909, 10,000,000 bushels of potatoes. 
 
 CONDITIONS IN CANADA'S TOnB EASTERN PROVINCES. 
 
 Canada has all the conditions for a great agricultural development inevitably 
 to destroy the equilibrium of our marlret. Except in the Province of Ontario, 
 she has no home market to speak of to absorb the surplus of her farmers. In 
 the four Provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and 
 Quebec, out of 2,500,000 people at the last census, about 150,000 were wage 
 earners in Industrial establishments, and their annual wages amounted to a 
 little over ,$50,000,000. The little State of Rhode Island alone had that year 
 two-thirds as many industrial wage earners and disbursed to them over 
 §43,000,000 in wages. But those four Provinces of Canada have an area .far 
 greater than all New England, with New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
 Indiana, and Illinois added. The four Provinces live to themselves. When 
 we speak of growing Canada we mean Ontario and the West. In the 20 years 
 comprised by the two last Canadian censuses the four vast eastern Provinces 
 added to their population 300,000. In one decade of that 20 years the State of 
 Massachusetts increased nearly twice 800,000, and Mr. Archibald Blue, com- 
 missioner of the coming Canadian census, is quoted in the papers as predicting 
 scarcely any Increase in the eastern Provinces, but a large growth in western 
 Canada. There Is little prospect for advance in those eastern Provinces unless 
 we divert to them purchases we now make from our own farmers. The farmers 
 of eastern Canada, having no markets except the distant English market, live 
 to themselves. But if stirred into life by access to our home market, they will 
 show great capacity for exportations, because they have no home market to 
 absorb their surplus. 
 
 BOUNDLESS EBSOnBCES OF WESTERN CANADA AS A COMPETITOB. 
 
 When we turn to western Canada we have a repetition of the conditions 
 which once prevailed in the United States. Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, 
 Alberta, and British Columbia are an empire of a million square miles. The 
 Canadian representative at the International Institute at Rome told the dele- 
 gates last year the prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta 
 were as large as England, France, Germany, and Italy. The five great western 
 Provinces, rich in a fertile soil, have a domain as great as that of the com- 
 bined States of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the two Dakotas, 
 89673—9828 
 
12 
 
 Kansas, Nebraska, Oklaboma, and Texas. When we remember the vast flood 
 of agricultural produce that those States have poured into the markets of the 
 world we can form some idea of what western Canada will do to the equili- 
 brium of marlcets for the next two generations of Americans. The London 
 Economist, England's great journal of finance and trade, has recently sent a cor- 
 respondent into western Canada. After noting that the United States produced 
 GOO.000,000 bushels of wheat in 1910, this correspondent lecords that in the 
 Canadian west there are 200,000,000 acres of wheat land not yet touched by the 
 plow that can produce 3,000,000,000 bushels of wheat annually, and there are 
 furthermore 2.j(i,000,000 acres suitable for cattle raising. But wheat and cattle 
 are not the only products. In 1909 Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta pro- 
 duced 10,000,000 bushels of potatoes, and in the last year the dairy commis- 
 sioner of Canada has noted that the dairying industry is growing rapidly in 
 northern Saskatchewan and northern Alberta. Korthern Ontario, hitherto 
 almost unknown, buir now opened up for mining, has been found to have 
 splendid potato land, equaling the best in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
 The Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk are opening up this region to settlers 
 and promise to make it as populous as older Ontario. 
 
 We have supposed that western Canada was a cold country, but last year in 
 Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta half the seeding was done by the end of 
 March ; in Saskatchewan young .stock began to run on the prairies early in 
 Iilarch ; and in (Jctober last the superintendent of the Government farm at 
 Indian Head, Jlanitoba, wrote that the cattle were still in pasture, while fall 
 plowing continued in Alberta until November 25. It has been assumed that 
 corn can not be raised there, but In August, 1010, the superintendent of the 
 experimental farm at Brandon, Manitoba, wrote, " Corn is a splendid crop." 
 Such, then, is Canada, west and east, in what are known as the nine Provinces. 
 They have an area of agricultural lands nearly equal to half the entire area of 
 continental United States. Its possibilities for agricultural development are 
 unlimited. Give to tho.se lands our home marlvet and two generations of 
 American farmers will not see the equilibrium of their market restored. 
 
 When we had the last destruction of equilibrium and the long dearth began 
 there were no riots, no outcries, but there was sadness and consternation in 
 many hillside homes. And as they always do when the home farm becomes 
 unprosperous, the young people went fcvrth to what they heard ^^-ero richer 
 lands. In my youth I saw them go and witnessed the tears and lamentatinns of 
 that going. I have lived to see their children come back to visit the old homes, 
 strong men and noble women, strangers to their father's home, but Americans 
 all, with the common traditions and the common hopes of the land of the free. 
 
 I'ass this bill, put into force this old reactionary policy that the rest of the 
 world has discarded, that even England w.mts to discard, and the dearth will 
 begin again, the young men and the young women will turn their faces again to 
 the setting sun — not to Missouri or Iowa, but to Saskatchewan and Alberta. 
 And some day their children will revisit their father.s' homes. I do not doubt 
 the magnificence of the manhood and the womanhood they will bring ; but tliey 
 will not be of the assets of this country. They will come from an alien land, 
 from under a foreign fla,g, and out of strange eyes they will look on the country- 
 men of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. [Applause on the Republican side.] 
 
 VAST POSSIEILITIES Or AGRICnLTl'KAL DEVELOPMENT IX THE DXITEO STATES. 
 
 If we admit, as we must, that Canada will destroy the prosperity of our agri- 
 culture, yet we have to deal with the insistent question of those who press this 
 bill, " What are we to do for food in the United States if we do not have 
 Canada's supplies?" This question is none the less insistent although the 
 jjrices the farmer gets are falling right along in the face of increased crops. 
 
 If we are honest with ourselves, the answer to this question is startling. 
 What the United States needs to-day, if there is a shortage of food, is not the 
 wholesale and slap-dash addition of vast areas to the sphere of our home 
 market, but the systematic and gradual improvement of the acres we have. 
 It is not flattering to our pride; but in our agricultural methods we rank witli 
 the second-rate nations, Spain, Itussia, India, and not with the leaders, Great 
 Britain, Germany, France, Austria, and Hungary. The International Institute 
 at Kome has averaged the wheat yield for the world for the five years preced- 
 ing 1903 and finds that where the United Stales produces loss than 14 bushels 
 to the acre Great Britain produces over 31, Germ.any over 29, France over 20, 
 Austria over 10, Hungary over 17. 
 80G73— 9828 
 
13 
 
 To quote again from Mr. James J. Hill's book, Highways of Progress, he haa 
 this about agriculture in the United States : 
 
 Only one-half the land In private ownership is now tilled. That tillage does not pro- 
 duce one-half what the land might be made to yield, without losing an atom of its 
 fertility. 
 
 In profit we are satigflcd with a small yield at the expense of the most rapid soil 
 deterioration. We are satisfled with a national annual ayerage product of $11.38 per 
 acre at the cost of a diminishing annual return from the same fields, when we might as 
 well secure two to three times that sum. 
 
 WE SHOULD ENCOURAGE AND NOT DISCOUnAGE THE PAnMER. 
 
 1 feel as humiliated as Mr. Hill does at this showing of American agricul- 
 ture. But there is a reason and excuse for it. For 30 years an opening of new 
 lands at the expense of the old kept the farmer poor and discouraged by de- 
 stroying the equilibrium of his markets. Discouraged farmers do not progress. 
 The development of English tillage occurred in the days before the deluge from 
 new lands; and that its excellence has been maintained through what the 
 (London Times of last June called " so protracted a struggle with overwhelming 
 foreign competition " is a notable tribute to one of the finest races of farmers 
 on earth. 
 
 The American farmer will forge to the front if our statesmanship will cease 
 smashing his markets. [Applause on the Republican side.] The chart of our 
 Agricultural Department shows that In the last few years, since his markets 
 have been reaching equilibrium, the average production per acre in 10 leading 
 crops has been the highest in 50 years. I am proud to say that in this develop- 
 ment the farmers of Maine have an honorable preeminence. 
 
 MAINE AN EXAMPLE OIT WHAT FAIR MARKETS WILL DO. 
 
 I will again cite Maine as an example of the benefits of fair markets as con- 
 trasted with unbalanced markets and as an example of what farmers will do 
 under proper conditions. In that State in the decade just closed farm lands 
 have increased 75 per cent in value, or a total for that State of 130,000,000 
 increase. The farm lands and buildings in that Slate in the last decade have 
 increased over $62,000,000 in value. From 1880 to 1900, 5,000 farms, every one 
 of them a home, had ceased to exist. From 1900 to 1910 the farms of Maine 
 increased in number by nearly 500, and the long tendency toward abandonment 
 was practically checked. This was not the only healthful sign. The number 
 owning farms increased, the number of tenant farmers decreased, the annual 
 expenditures for farm labor Increased from two and a half million dollars to 
 $5,000,000, and most significant of all, the expenditures for fertilizers increased 
 from a little over $800,000 to more than $5,000,000. 
 
 I have commented on the shortsightedness of considering this question from 
 the standpoint of the farmer alone. This prosperity of the farmer has reacted 
 on the cities. In Maine, the metropolis, Portland, has grown as in no previous 
 decade of her history. When 5,000 farms of JIaiue were going out of business 
 progress was slow. With the farmer prosperous, all else prospers, for he spends 
 his money at home. But if by this new policy we are to increase the purchasing 
 power of the potato farmer of New Brunswick, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, the 
 apple farmer of Nova Scotia, the dairyman of Quebec, those farmers will spend 
 their money in their own cities. If they spend it in ours they must hoist their 
 goods over a high Canadian tariff wall before they can get them home because, 
 of the articles for which we might have a market in Canada, very few are made 
 free by this bill. 
 
 If I may be pardoned again for citing the example of JIaine, which is the 
 great agricultural State of New England, I will call attention to a most happy 
 effect of the restoration of equilibrium in the farmer's market. That is the 
 increase of rural population in towns under 4,000. 
 
 In the two decades preceding 1900 all the growth of the State was in the cities 
 and large villages. The rural communities made a startling decrease. In the 
 gain of the whole State in the last decade — a gain which greatly exceeds that of 
 the preceding decade — the cities do not contribute all and then help make up a 
 deficit for the country. The country and small villages gained one-third of the 
 total gain, and even the towns under 2,000 population turned the tide of loss. 
 Give us equilibrium of markets for another decade and the old prosperity of 
 country life in America will return ; for what the census shows as to Maine will 
 undoubtedly be found true in many other States, especially in the East and 
 South. 
 
 89673—9828 
 
14 
 
 THE GREATEST OrPOETUNITY FOE CONSERVATION. 
 
 There is no limit for many years to the progress which onr farmers may malce 
 for themselves and for the cities which supply them. To quote again from 
 James J. HiU's book : 
 
 An industrious, fairly intelligent, and exceedingly comfortable agricultural community 
 can raise from tlio soi'l food enough for the needs of 400 persons to tlie square mile. 
 Adopting that ratio, the 414,4!)8,4K7 acres of improved farm lands in the United States 
 on the date of the last official irport — an area materially enlarged by the present time — 
 would support in comfort 317,:;.jI.(,405 people, enabling them at the same time to raise 
 considerable food for export and 1o engage in necessary manufacturing employments. 
 Applying the same ratio to the entire acreage of farm lands within the Ignited States, 
 both improved and unimproved, which was at the same date 8:i8,ri91,774, the population 
 indicated as able to live with comfort and prosperity on the actually existing agricultural 
 area of this country, under an Intelligent system and a fairly competent but by no means 
 highly scientific method of agriculture, rises to 64:J,04G,S2;j, 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Let any gentleman who sees golden visions of prosperity in buying from the 
 Canadian farmers instead of from our own farmers apply Mr. Hill's estimate 
 to his own State. Such a development of agriculture, with a harmonious sup- 
 plementary development of manufactures on her great water ijowers, would 
 give to Maine a population of 5,000,000 people. Her commercial metropolis, 
 ]?ortland, would find in that population business to justify a great and healthy 
 growth, based on a prosperous coimtry about. Is not that growth better than 
 the congestion of people driven from unprofitable farms to seelv employment 
 in the city, like the Idle thousands of London who tramp the streets in want 
 while the acres of England are going out of cultivation? [Applause on the 
 Eepublican side.] 
 
 Here lies the greatest conservation opportunity ever placed before a nation. 
 It is an opportunity that can be seized only by the efforts of the farmers. And 
 yet we to-day are proposing to take the heart out of tlieir efforts by destroying 
 the natural equilibrium of their home market. [Applause on the llepublicaa 
 side.] 
 
 THE rARlIER NOT RESPONSIBLE FOE COST OF LIVING IN TnE CITIES. 
 
 While the proposed proceeding against the farmer is evidently indefensible, 
 the outcry In the cities against the high cost of living impels us onv.'ard in our 
 search for a victim. We all admit the high prices ; many of us are oppressed by 
 them; few of us know that wholesale prices have been falling for nearly a year, 
 so much does the retail price affect us. But has anyone proved that the ruin 
 of the American farmer will lovi'er prices in the cities except as it may shrivel 
 the business of the cities? And ought not some one to prove this before we 
 proceed to spoil the farmer's home market for the ne.xt two generations? 
 
 To give a little personal experience : While the farmers of Maine have been 
 getting 2.5 cents a bushel for potatoes, I have been paying for them a dollar a 
 bushel. You may think this an extreme lllu,stration of the difference between 
 the price the farmer gets and the price the consumer pays. I am not certain 
 that it is. Unfortunately we have had no investigation on this highly important 
 point. In another distinguished body an inquiry was proposed last year, but 
 unless my memory is at fault, an appropriation for it was defeated by objec- 
 tion from the Democratic side of the Chamber. But our own observation and 
 that of others will show us that there is a vast difference between consumers' 
 prices and farmers' prices. Last summer Mr'. B. F. Yoakum, head of the Frisco 
 liailway system, published in the Saturday Evening Post an article on '• The 
 farmer and the cost of living," in which he set forth, after what he considered " a 
 careful investigation," the food bill of New York City for the year as related 
 to the farmer. Here it is : 
 
 Received by 
 fanner. 
 
 Paid by 
 consumer. 
 
 Onions 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Coffee 
 
 Rice 
 
 Cabbages 
 
 Milk 
 
 Eggs 
 
 Meat and poultry 
 
 ?s:i,ooo 
 
 8, 4.17, 000 
 2,ffl:,000 
 1,3J4,000 
 l,S2,-,,000 
 2:,!I12,000 
 17,2.is,000 
 219,300,000 
 
 SS, 212, 000 
 60, 000, 000 
 12,009,000 
 6,191,000 
 9,125,000 
 48,880,000 
 28, 730, 000 
 291,000,000 
 
 274, 289, 000 464, 147, 000 
 
 80073— 0S2S 
 
15 
 
 Mr. Yoakum' was not arguing on the tariff question, but on the need of rail- 
 road de,velopment, and therefore he may be considered an unprejudiced witness 
 BO far as this subject is concerned. 
 
 Mr. Yoakum shows that the price of the onion increased 10 times on Its way 
 from the farmer to the New York City consumer. If this high authority is cor- 
 rect, has anyone searched those people who have that onion between the time it 
 "ieaves the farmer's hands and gets to the consumer? And If no one has, ought 
 it not to be done before we try and convict the farmer as the robber and sentence 
 him to Jose his paltry protection of 40 cents a bushel on onions? Is the one who 
 takes one-tenth for an onion he has planted and raised to be pursued and those 
 .who take nine-tenths escape investigation even? 
 
 Mr. Yoakum shows that the price of the potato increased more than seven 
 times on its way from the farmer to the New York City consumer. If this high 
 authority is correct, has anyone searched the people who have that potato be- 
 tween the time it leaves the farmer's hands and gets to the consumer? And if 
 no one has, ought it not to be done before we try and convict the farmer as the 
 robber and sentence him to lose his paltry protection of 25 cents a bushel? Is 
 the man who takes one-seventh for a potato he has planted and raised to be pur- 
 sued, while no questions are to be asked as to those who get the six-sevenths? 
 
 Mr. Yoakum shows that the price of rice increased five times from the hands 
 of the farmer to the hands of the consumer. If this high authority is correct, 
 has anyone searched the people who have that rice between the time it leaves 
 the farmer's hands and gets to the consumer? And if no one has, ought it not 
 to be done before we try and convict the rice farmer and take from his the duty 
 of 2 cents a pound? This bill, it is true, does not touch rice; but does the rice 
 farmer of the Carolinas think that protection is going to last for the few after 
 it is stripped from the many? 
 
 Mr. Yoakum shows that the price of eggs doubles ft"om thp time they leave the 
 farmer's hands to the time they reach the consumer's hands in New York. As 
 our own Agricultural Department has published figures tending to confirm this 
 estimate, it gives confldence in the estimates as to other commodities, startling 
 as they may seem. 
 
 Who gets the great increases between the farmer and the consumer? I see no 
 evidence that the retail merchant gets more than his necessities as to rent, dis- 
 play, advertising, labor, and service compel him to take. We can conjecture as 
 to the causes, but we have not ascertained scientiflcally. 
 
 THE TARIFF OF NO EFFECT ON PRICES TO THE CONSDUER. 
 
 The price of coffee is estimated to increase five times from the producer to the 
 consumer ; and as there is absolutely free trade in coffee, here is a patent sug- 
 gestion that the tariff, while it has important bearing on the equilibrium of the 
 farmer's market, has very little Influence on what the consumer pays. In the 
 very height of high prices last fall the minority Democratic members of the in- 
 .vestigating committee of another distinguished body came to this conclusion : 
 
 Notwithstanding the large increase in the price of farm products, the farmer has real- 
 ized a small net return on his labor and investment. 
 
 Can not you leave the farmer this small net return? Can not you do it In 
 consideration of the long dearth he has suffered? There he stands, the damp- 
 ness of honest toil on his brow, in his heart the satisfaction that he has lasted 
 through the trial. He is a hero. He has won the long fight. He has done it 
 with brains as well as muscle. When the onset was fiercest he reduced his 
 acreage and intensified his culture ; that is, he contracted the wings and 
 strengthened the center. If he had been a man with a sword, we would have 
 given him pension and office, and that exquisite American adulation of accepting 
 every word from his lips as the last thing in wisdom. But as he is a farmer, 
 and as farmers are organized very imperfectly for unity of action, we pat him 
 on the back, say he is a good fellow, and, without investigation, without even 
 an unscientific investigation worthy the name, we turn loose on him new and 
 unnumbered hordes. [Applause on the Kepublicau side.] 
 
 CONSUMERS OF COAL, FLOUR, AND MEAT. 
 
 By admitting that this question should be settled on broad, national grounds 
 only, I do not wish to be understood as condoning in any way the great injus- 
 tices' committed on certain industries and certain sections of the country. It 
 has been a longing of New England, stimulated by the Democratic orators 
 89673 — 9828 
 
16 
 
 for more than lialf a century, that she might bny coal at those great andt 
 near-by mines of Nova-Scotia. Gov. Foss, of Massachusetts, told us last fall 
 that free coal was one of the great blessings of reciprocity for us. But real- 
 izing the benefit of the broad, national policy of protection, the better judg- 
 ment of our ])oople has favored buying coal in the distant fields of Pennsylvania 
 and West Virginia, although the freight paid to the railroads is a burden on 
 Industry. The old reciprocity treaty of 1.S.j4 gave this Canadian coai frf^; 
 entrance, and the official documents of the time seem to show that it found 
 a large market on the Atlantic seaboard. This new treaty lets in over the 
 border line freely every natural product that New England produces herself; 
 but this one great commodity that she does not produce, that her northern 
 climate makes so precious to her people, is denied her. The old treaty wrote 
 in "coal" in bold, satisfying black letters; this agreement, if it does anything 
 in this line, makes only a penurious little concession by reducing the dutj 
 on coal screenings to 15 cents a ton, which it was in the Diugley law, where 
 it was intended to be in the Payne law. That may help some big mills, if 
 they use those screenings, and is good as far as it goes; but the most sedate 
 New England farmer, if he can control his anger at the injustice, will hardly, 
 control his mirth at the ridiculousness of an arrangement that sets in motion 
 into his market free as air all the potatoes, beets, turnips, hay, cabbages, butter, 
 cheese, hoof-parting and cud-chewing animals that Canada can produce, and 
 -allows himself and his neighbors such coal as will strain through a hole half an 
 inch square. 
 
 It would be possible to go much further in criticism of details of this agree- 
 ment. If duties between this country and Canada are burdens, which I do 
 not admit, it may be pointed out that we are taking all burdens off the flour 
 makers and leaving much on the flour consumers; that we are taking all bur- 
 den off the great incorporated butchers' trust and leaving much on the con- 
 sumers of meat. 
 
 THE FISnEKIES. 
 
 ■If this were a council of national defense I would recall that the two great 
 militant civilizations of Europe, Germany and France, protect by ample duties 
 the hard-won spoil of their fishermen, that they may have those fishermen in 
 their hour of need, as we have had ours in every crisis since Washington 
 crossed the Delaware. After preserving in the field of diplomacy the fishing 
 rights won by our fathers on the field of battle, John Quincy Adams trans- 
 mitted to his posterity a seal intended to commemorate the glory both of his 
 country and his family. And the legend on that seal v.'as such as you could not 
 honestly write across the face of this bill — " Pi^cemur, venemnr, ut olim "' — < 
 " We keep our fishing grounds and our hunting grounds as of old." 
 
 THE SAFE AND D.NS.4FE COURSE. 
 
 It is because we are in doubt as to the main features of this great problem 
 and are overriding facts where inquiry seems to have removed doubts that I 
 confess a great impatience of this capital move tliat the House seems about to 
 make. The European nations where scholarship and scientific inquiry is 
 applied to political problems as nowhere else on earth, Germany and France 
 strictly maintain their agricultural duties. The tarilT commission of England, 
 after collecting volumes of facts, has recommended agricultural duties for 
 England. 
 
 Years ago, on a stormy afternoon, a gallant steamer sailed down an eastern 
 harbor on its way to a coastwise port. As she went down that harbor other 
 steamers running to that same coast were coming back, for the sky and sea 
 promised ill, Irat that one steanier went on in defiance of the common judgment 
 of the sea that afternoon. And she went to one of the great sea tragedies of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 Is this House to disregard the common judgment of the nations and without 
 Investigation plunge forward to do this great thing? Even before you change 
 the postage rates on a few magazines you have an inve.stigation by a learned 
 commission. I!ut j'ou propose to change the fundamental conditions of 6,000,000 
 farm h<nnes with no investigation worthy of the name. 
 
 As one Member I protest against this dangerous haste and against this bill, 
 as tending to break up farm homes, retard rural development, and increase the 
 congestion of the cities. [Loud applause.] 
 
 SC>G73— 0828