The Tariff and the Farmer. 17 



freest trade. Neither would Congress have been per- 

 mitted to give away farms. 



The ever-increasing agricultural surplus caused a con- 

 tinuous fall in prices from the close of the great war to 

 1897, inclusive. Price went far below what it was before 

 the great war. The fall was so great that with any other 

 industry the result would have been universal bank- 

 ruptcy. 



We note now the views commonly held as to the power- 

 ful influence a surplus has upon price. Mr. John P. 

 Young, long managing editor of the San Francisco 

 Chronicle, said that American manufacturers ^'learned 

 the bitter lesson that the surplus, when dumped on the 

 domestic market, fixed the price without reference to the 

 cost of the product." ''The idea is now generally enter- 

 tained by workingmen in the United States, and it is 

 shared by those of Germany, that excessive competition 

 in the home market is destructive to home industry." 



Senator Beveridge speaks of the ' ' sale of our surplus 

 upon which our whole prosperity depends." 



Senator Hoar's words are: "A prosperous manufac- 

 turing country that sends its products abroad will 

 always, if it is to remain prosperous, get higher prices 

 for its products at home than it does abroad. In other 

 words, it dumps its surplus in foreign markets." 



The effect of disposing of a surplus in the home mar- 

 ket is indicated in these words of Mr. David A. Wells : 

 ' ' If production exceeds by even a very small percentage 

 what is required to meet every current demand for con- 

 sumption, the price which the surplus will command in 

 the open market will govern and control the price of the 

 whole ; and if it cannot be sold at all, or with difficulty, an 

 intense competition on the part of the owners of the 



