38 



THE FARMERS' SALT QUESTION. 



Northwest can buy a barrel of salt for 1.12 bushels of wheat at the present time, 

 in the Chicago market, under this awful tariff that Mr. Wells and his friends, the 

 disinterested English manufacturers, find so much fault with. As compared 

 with the Free Trade prices of 1860, our farmers are able to save 1.38 bushels of 

 wheat on the purchase of every barrel of salt used upon the farm. This saving, 

 according even to Free Trade logic, must be credited to Protection. 



The chief priest of the American Free Trade synagogue has not only misrep- 

 resented the facts, but has had the audacity completely to reverse the facts; or 

 else he is perfectly ignorant of the facts. 



Conclusive as this answer is, we shall place it upon still 

 broader and more impregnable ground. Accordingly, we com- 

 pare the purchasing power of wheat for salt in the years 1872, 1873, 

 and 1874, under Protection, with such purchasing power in the 

 years 1856, 1857, and 1858, under partial Free Trade. The 

 contrast between these two periods is peculiarly apt and cogent. 

 Each embraces a year before a panic, a year with a panic, and a 

 year after the panic. We take the prices of wheat and salt for the 

 earlier period from the annual reviews of the trade and commerce 

 of Chicago, for the several years, as published at the time in the 

 Daily Press and Tribune, of this city, and the prices for the latter 

 period from the official reports of the Chicago Board of Trade. 

 In all cases the highest price in each month has been used, because 

 the top of the market is always most sensitive to a downward 

 tendency, and thus represents the greatest purchasing power of the 

 commodity that can be maintained amid the surrounding circum- 

 stances. All the prices were the ruling ones for cash. 



