Fanner Protected from Imaginary Danger. 13 



cultural Department indicate that this distress is gen- 

 eral ; that Great Britain, France and Germany are suffer- 

 ing in a greater degree than the farmer of the United 

 States." "It has been asserted in the views of the 

 minority" (Democratic members of the committee) 

 ' ' that the duty put on wheat and other agricultural prod- 

 ucts would be of no value to the agriculturists of the 

 United States. The committee, believing differently, has 

 advanced the duty upon these products. As we are the 

 greatest wheat-producing country in the world, it is 

 habitual to assert, and it is believed by many, that this 

 product is safe from foreign competition. We do not 

 appreciate that while the United States last year raised 

 490,000,000 bushels, France raised 316,000,000, Italy 103,- 

 000,000, Eussia 189,000,000, and India 243,000,000; and 

 that the total production of Asia, including Asia Minor, 

 Syria and Persia, amounted to over 315,000,000 bush- 

 els." "Our sharpest competition comes from Eussia 

 and India, and if we will reflect on the difference of the 

 cost of labor in producing wheat in the United States, 

 and in competing countries, we shall readily perceive how 

 near we are to the danger line." "The farmers of the 

 United States have therefore come to appreciate that the 

 time is already here when the American farmer must 

 sell his products in the market of the world in competi- 

 tion with the wheat produced by the lowest priced labor 

 of other countries. And that his care and concern must 

 be to preserve his home market, for he must of necessity 

 be driven from the foreign one unless he can by diminish- 

 ing the cost of his productions successfully compete with 

 the unequal conditions I have described. ' ' 



In the last quotation Mr. McKinley indicates that a 

 change of condition had taken place in regard to compe- 



