40 THE FARMERS' SALT QUESTION. 



were required to pay for a barrel of salt. Moreover, in the Free 

 Trade period there were only four months in which the stipulated 

 buying could have been accomplished with less than t^ bushels 

 of wheat ; but, in the Protective period, it could have been done 

 in twenty-six months, or in all except ten. These are facts, and 

 they are facts which demolish the argument of Mr. Wells, and 

 place him in a very awkward attitude before, the people that of 

 attempting to obtain their convictions on false pretenses. Our 

 comparative tables fully and triumphantly vindicate our present 

 tariff system from the aspersions of its enemies, by conclusively 

 showing that the farmer' 's wheat will purchase more salt under Pro- 

 tection than it would under partial Free Trade. 



In its issue of August yth, 1875, the Chicago Tribune quoted 

 Saginaw, Onondaga, and Canada salt, fine, at $1.40 per barrel, 

 with the lowest cash price of No. i spring wheat at $1.34 per 

 bushel. On the basis of these quotations, 1.0448 bushels, or 

 scarcely more than one bushel of wheat, would have purchased a 

 barrel of salt. The lowest cash price of No. 2 spring wheat, same 

 day, is given at $1.28^ per bushel, at which rate a barrel of salt 

 could have been paid for with 1.0895 bushels of this quality. No 

 such transaction could have taken place in the Free Trade years 

 1856, 1857, and 1858. Besides, at that period the farmers did not, 

 as now, generally use labor-saving agricultural implements, nor did 

 they have so many railroads or so cheap transportation. Making 

 due allowance for these advantages, Western wheat has fully doubled 

 its purchasing power in relation to salt, instead of decreasing fifty 

 per cent., as Mr. Wells asserts by completely reversing the truth. 

 After this humiliating disclosure, the Free Traders should stop 

 their senseless clamor about the tariff on salt, and particularly 

 about its robbery of the farmers. 



