I06 AMERICAN FARMS. 



Commissioner's a costly establishment in London, with 

 English fabrics instead of Canadian. What a splendid 

 chance was thus lost for an exhibition of patriotic feeling 

 and for the advertisement of the country's superior 

 productions ! 



When the Postmaster-General requires a quantity of 

 wool serge for postmen's uniforms, as was lately the case 

 in Canada, the order goes to a foreign country, although 

 the farmers are all, more or less, depending on the suc- 

 cessful production of the raw material from which such 

 goods are fabricated, and the cloth manufacturers are 

 grumbling on account of lack of orders. 



Protection — more correctly " aggression " — is the dead- 

 ly enemy of our farmers ; for, while the general tenden- 

 cies are for monopoly to absorb the rural population, a 

 protective policy, such as we now have, derives its power 

 to assist monopoly, not from the planets, not from the 

 mountains of the moon, but from the pockets of the 

 farmers. 



Protection narrows down, to the farmer, the margin of 

 profit between effort and result. Thus his opportunities 

 for progress are not only limited, but are actually being 

 reduced to nothing. The results are, that the class who, 

 in the early days of America's history, laid the founda- 

 tion for its present greatness, are in the future to be 

 deprived of the necessary opportunities for economic 

 power, for political influence, for the gain of knowledge, 

 for culture, for the exercise of the higher faculties 

 through which progress is possible. There can be no 

 escape from this conclusion, for reports and proofs come 

 to us from all parties and from all quarters, that the 

 farmers of America are becoming hopelessly involved 

 in financial ruin. 



