FARMERS TO THE FRONT 135 



could be taught to consume the fine cereals and 

 meats produced on our American farms, if an earnest 

 and well-directed effort were made to open and 

 cultivate foreign markets. Lower taxes and wider 

 markets could thus both be secured by legislation, 

 and the American Society of Equity will work for 

 such legislation, bringing directly to bear on Con- 

 gress the influence of over 10,000,000 American 

 voters who now play little part in the business of 

 lawmaking. This constant failure of the efforts to 

 secure reciprocity has another bad effect on the 

 farmer, for it provokes retaliation on the part of 

 other countries from which the farmer even now 

 suffers, and will suffer still more. Our fruits, cattle 

 and meat products have been made the subjects of 

 discriminating taxes and vexatious inspection im- 

 posed and resorted to by foreign governments in 

 retaliation for exorbitant duties levied by our gov- 

 ernment on their exports to this country. There 

 are threats of further retaliation, and we even hear 

 talk of a European combination to save the Euro- 

 pean markets from the so-called American invasion. 

 Yet we go on in the same old way, and our manu- 

 facturers get even for the low prices at which they 

 must sell abroad, by charging the home consumer 

 greatly higher prices. Thus the farmers are kept 

 out of foreign markets that they ought to have, sim- 

 ply that the manufacturers may plunder the home 

 market. 



Such arrangements as these arc plainly not the 



