114 THE AGRICULTURAL BLO€ 



portance is shown by the fact that the value of 

 our farm production in a single year is more 

 important to us than the entire indebtedness 

 of foreign nations to this country. There are 

 those who complain that our tariffs must not 

 restrict our trade with Europe and thereby 

 handicap Europe in its efforts to repay debts 

 to this country. American agriculture, how- 

 ever, is of so much more importance to us than 

 these foreign debts that it would be better that 

 these debts were never paid than to injure our 

 agricultural industry. 



The Emergency Tariff Act which was pri- 

 marily designed to protect agriculture had a far 

 greater psychological effect than is generally 

 realized. Though it is difficult to show just how 

 great was the effect of this act on prices of farm 

 products, it is not difficult to point out that 

 a return of better conditions was to be noted 

 shortly following the enactment of that act. 



The United States is one of the world's great- 

 est consuming markets and our farm people 

 constitute roughly one-third of our consumers. 

 Any protection, therefore, that tends to con- 

 serve the buying power of our agricultural 

 people is conserving the market for industry 

 and commerce. The admission of cheap imports 



