AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



745 



United States. Even if such a scheme were once in operation, 

 there would be no hope of its permanence. It would be de- 

 nounced as embodying class legislation. Many farmers, disap- 

 pointed at the small benefits accruing to them from the measure, 

 would give it but indifferent support. If it raised prices the 

 hostility of the non-agricultural portion of the population would 

 be aroused against it. The short life of the sugar-bounty clause 

 of the McKinley tariff act of 1890 illustrates how such measures 

 fare under a popular government. Under a despotism a policy 

 of bounties on exports might be feasible ; but with a government 

 that so quickly reflects a change in public sentiment as our own, 

 there would be no assurance that such a measure would endure 

 for any considerable length of time. 



Nor does the policy we are considering present a more favor- 

 able aspect from the financial point of view. Under existing 

 circumstances, when the national revenue is inadequate to meet 

 the needs of the government, the inauguration of a bounty policy 

 would seriously embarrass the treasury and necessitate a recon- 

 struction of our whole fiscal system. To make good the increased 

 deficit it would be necessary to enlarge the excise, to place im- 

 posts upon sugar, tea, and coffee, and probably to increase the 

 protective features of the tariff, though the last device, according 

 to Mr. Lubin, would take from one pocket of the farmer what 

 the export bounty had lodged in the other. To tighten thus the 

 screws of the machinery of taxation in the interest of a class 

 would run counter to the prejudices of the people and would 

 thereby violate a fundamental principle of finance. Nor is this 

 all. The volume of agricultural exports varies from year to year 

 with the foreign demand and other conditions beyond the power 

 of government officials^ to control or forecast. The exportation 

 of wheat in the fiscal year 1892, for example, was more than 

 three times that of the year preceding. There was also an 

 enormous and unforeseen increase in the exports of farm staples 

 during the calendar year 1896, as compared with those of 1895. 

 The impossibility of adjusting appropriations to the actual re- 

 quirements of an export bounty upon agricultural staples is there- 

 fore apparent. Such a bounty is thus open to the further serious 



