THE FARMERS' SALT QUESTION. 37 



551,880 pounds of salt, at an invoice value 0^5,006,197 ; yet, for 

 the four years ending June 30, 1874, we imported 2,963,204,738 

 pounds of salt, at an invoice value of $6,591,243, with Protective 

 duties on salt. If this is restriction, what does restriction mean? 

 According to the dictionary, that word signifies "confinement with- 

 in bounds ; " but, in this case we have instanced, the bounds have 

 been broken through. Again, Mr. Wells speaks of an "average 

 price of No. i spring wheat." Now, that statement involves an 

 impossibility. To obtain an average price, the rule of arithmetic 

 requires that the total value shall be divided by the aggregate 

 quantity. As no such record of values and quantities has been pre- 

 served, it is beyond the power of man to arrive at the average 

 price. When, therefore, Mr. Wells rests his argument upon an 

 average price, he rests it upon an impracticable assumption upon 

 something that has no ascertainable foundation. Such are the the- 

 oretic follies of the Free Trade system. 



Nevertheless, we shall pile evidence upon evidence against Mr. 

 Wells. To begin with, we quote from an able article in the 

 Evening Journal, of Chicago, July 27: 



Let us now compare the actual facts with what Mr. Wells asserts are the facts. 

 We have not the Chicago prices at hand, but we have a table of comparative 

 prices, compiled by the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin (a Free Trade paper), and 

 as the prices of salt and wheat in Chicago and Milwaukee never vary to any great 

 extent, these figures may be accepted as, to all intents and purposes, reliable : 



1860. 1872. 1873. 1875. 



Gold $1.00 #1.12 $1.10^ j^i.ii 



No. i wheat 80 i- 2 9X ' I - 2 /^ z - 2 5 



Salt, per barrel 1.90 2.40 1.90 1.40 



In 1860, while the Free Trade tariff of 1857 was still in force, it required two 

 and a half bushels of No. i wheat to purchase a barrel of salt, instead of one 

 bushel, as Mr. Wells would have his readers believe This is a very remarka- 

 ble error of fact for a man who claims to be an original investigator, and whose 

 opinions are quoted as law and gospel by the Free Trade fanatics ; yet his lan- 

 guage can bear no other construction than that one bushel of grain should have 

 theoretically been equal to one barrel of salt, whereas, as a matter of fact, it 

 actually required two and a half bushels of wheat to buy a barrel of salt. On 

 the other hand, in 1873, under this tariff, which Mr. Wells condemns so freely, 

 our Western farmers were enabled to purchase a barrel of salt for one and a half 

 bushels of No. I wheat, so that there was an actual saving of just one bushel 

 under the tariff, instead of a loss of one bushel, as Mr. Wells states. 



But this is not all. The commercial columns of the same issue of the Chicago 

 Tribune which contained Mr. Wells's great effort show that the people of the 



