140 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



exchanges represent an annual value perliaps twenty-five 

 times as great as the total of exports and imports." 



The rate of duties from 1850-60 were from 50 to 100% 

 lower than under the Dingiey tariff. Did foreigners 

 crowd our producers out of the home market? The 

 crushing answer given by the census is : ^ ' The value of 

 our manufactures increased 85% that decade." Since 

 then there is strong evidence that the rate of wages 

 abroad has risen relatively more than in the United 

 States. The far greater use of machinery here than in 

 foreign lands has nearly, if not quite, put our manufac- 

 turers on an even footing in all branches with their for- 

 ,eign rivals. 



Is tariff coddling conducive to industrial progress? 

 The 85% gain in value of manufactured products under 

 the low duties of 1850-60 does not indicate it. Under 

 high duties the gain from 1870-80 was but 27%; from 

 1880-90, 74.5%, and from 1890-1900 only 38.8%. 



Mr. Carroll D. Wright says: "It is a curious fact, well 

 known to those familiar with patents, that depressed 

 periods often result in the stimulation of invention. ' ' He 

 then goes on : ' ' During the last twenty or thirty years of 

 the period ending with 1860 there were patented some of 

 the most important inventions of the age." This period, 

 with the exception of from 1842-46, is the time of lowest 

 rates of duties way back nearly ninety years. 



The noted writer on economic subjects, Mr. Francis A. 

 Walker, quotes with approval this statement : " It was an 

 axiom of the late Mr. John Kennedy, who was called the 

 father of the cotton manufacture, that no manufacturing 

 improvements were ever made except on threadbare 

 profits. ' ' 



We turn now to the hard times of 1893-97. In the lat- 



