12 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY. 



out of it ; the laborers would be on an equal footing witb the 

 masters. But^ as it is, the masters have both the public and their 

 employes " in chancery/' and have so far been able to resist the 

 otherwise universal tendency to advance in wages. The little cir- 

 cle of events which I have outlined has taken place again and 

 again in Pennsylvania, as the frequent strikes (more frequent, I 

 believe, than anywhere else in the Union) in part testify. These 

 circumstances can not long escape the attention of the leaders of 

 the laboring-people, and from the rising unpopularity of protec- 

 tion among them we may confidently predict that they will not 

 much longer be deceived.* 



The depression of American agriculture is well known. In 

 the ten years 1850-'60 the value of American farms more than 

 doubled. In the following twenty years the value increased 

 slightly over 50 per cent. So far as the influence of the tariff is 

 felt in the value of farms, it might be supposed that its operation 

 would be very favorable in the manufacturing States. Yet even 

 here the percentage of increase in value for the decade 1850-60 

 is greater than for the twenty years following 1860. All the New 

 England States, save Massachusetts and Rhode Island, show a 

 nominal decrease in the decade 1870-'80, and, even allowing for 

 the 25-per-cent depreciation of greenbacks in 1870, the increase is 

 not great ; it does not by any means keep pace with the decade 

 of 1850-'60, during which there was a low tariff. The State of 

 Illinois should be a fair example of what has happened in purely 

 agricultural States. From 1850 to 1860 the increase was 412 per 

 cent; from 1860 to 1880 it was but 250 per cent. The census does 

 not show the mortgages on farms ; but, according to the statis- 

 tics printed in the "New York Times," ten agricultural States 

 have their farms mortgaged for $3,422,000,000 on a total valuation 

 of less than four times as much. It would be surprising if agri- 

 culture were not depressed. The same state of affairs exists in 

 American farming as existed in 1840 in English manufacturing, 

 when Cobden and his friends associated themselves to bring in 

 free wheat and to break the power of the landlords. Every tool 

 which farmers use, and nearly every article they consume, bears 

 a heavy tax, just as in Great Britain the high-tariff prices of pro- 

 visions made it impossible for the manufacturers to pay subsist- 

 ence wages to workmen. This country naturally manufactures 

 agricultural machinery, and would do so even under absolute free 

 trade, as is proved by the fact that we export it, but the duty on 

 iron-ore and pig-iron makes the price from 15 to 25 per cent 

 higher. Sugar is enhanced in price about 75 per cent by the tariff, 

 and clothing, furniture, and lumber are largely raised in price to 



* This explanation was first made, T think, by Mr. Benjamin Reece, at the Free-Trade 

 Conference of 1885. 



