1 88 AMERICAN FARMS. 



Though the much-talked-of "Mills Bill," which the 

 American people have lately passed their verdict upon, 

 was certainly a free-trade measure in an international 

 sense ; we are not surprised that it found no more favor 

 with the agricultural classes. It offered them little relief 

 from the avarice of the monopolist, while it threatened 

 to take from a large class of farmers the little protection 

 they may have enjoyed. But it is hard to conceive it 

 possible that the farmers of the United States should 

 have suffered the impositions which have been gradually 

 put upon them, without louder protests ere this. We 

 find, however, that these exactions have gathered with 

 more or less increasing force for a century. 



The "triumphant" Republican party boasts of having 

 done much in the interest of the people in increasing the 

 free list, from representing an import of only 14 millions 

 per annum twenty years ago, to representing 244 millions 

 at the present time. Into this free list has gone the 

 greater part of the slight protection which the farmer 

 may have had. While these changes have been made 

 against him, more important ones have been made in 

 another direction. The duties which he has been 

 obliged to pay on manufactured articles, have risen 

 from about 25^ per cent, in the decade 1850-60, to 38 

 per cent, in the decade 1860-70 ; to be raised again to 

 42 1^ per cent, in the decade 1870-80 ; and then again to 

 44 per cent, in the last seven years ; to finish up with 47 

 per cent, in 1887, The free list has been made to cover 

 such articles as are consumed by all, and productive of 

 revenue for the government treasury only — when taxed 

 — and the few articles of farm produce which may be 

 imported. Says Professor Taussig, in his " Tariff His- 

 tory of the United States " : " Step by step, in the 



