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This newspaper page contains 13 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Boston Post
Location
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Date
Feb 25, 1888
Page
9
A historical survey details how farmers cope with wartime taxes, outlining increased levies, shifting costs, and the impact on crop prices and rural livelihoods. It highlights county agents, farm organizations, and market responses shaping farmer resilience.
A Massachusetts perspective argues that high war taxes persist after 1865, harming farmers who must pay duties on staple goods. It contests protectionist theory, noting minimal benefit to New England agriculture while consumers shoulder higher prices and local industry profits rise for mills and factories. The piece calls for tariff reform to expand exchange with distant markets and reduce living costs.
Washington notes quote Congressman John E. Russell defending tariff reform and its impact on farmers in the tenth district. He argues farmers are taxed across goods from salt to lumber, cites home market limits, and warns against retaliatory duties while praising free wool and the need to improve meat production and mutton quality for better farm profits.
Congressman Burnett said the current tariff harms farmers and urged more relief such as free raw materials and targeted duties on hay barley eggs poultry potatoes and vegetables. He argued farmers subsidize industry yet receive little compensating benefit, noting wage discrepancies and varying impacts by location.
The Hon. George B. Loring argues tariff policy shifts tax from consumers to foreign producers. The piece questions protectionists claims about tariff benefits to farmers, noting Massachusetts manufacturing capital growth and farm land gains, and asking why farmers have not shared prosperity.
The narrator describes paying 16 dollars for a London Melton overcoat and a New York driver paying 18 dollars. He argues that European poverty stems from concentrated wealth, not free trade, and criticizes protectionists who claim tariffs raise wages while noting European countries with low protection have higher wages. He suggests free trade is misunderstood and Europe lacks true free trade.
From Gladstone's Leeds speech of 1881, he argues America's protectionist system limits its global exports while the UK maintains commercial primacy. He contrasts American export volumes to Asia, Africa, and Australasia with Britain's far larger shipments, urging continued free trade and warning against protective errors.
The piece argues that steel rail makers used patent rights and tariffs to force domestic purchases by large rail customers. It notes Pacific railroad charters were conditioned on buying American iron and steel, while domestic producers imported foreign pig iron scrap and ore. It cites foreign ore imports in 1880 totaling 493,408 tons and old rails worth about $14.7 million, highlighting contrasts in supposed national labor protection.
A historical speech excerpt argues against taxation of breadstuffs and lumber, highlighting wartime measures, protectionism, and tariff tricks. It notes lumber use for daily life and criticizes attempts to dodge duties with damaged goods, citing Congressman James G Blaine and later tariff evasion tactics by button makers and cloth suppliers.
The writer accuses protectionists of avoiding tariffs while imposing them on others. He cites Samuel Williston and partners in Easthampton Massachusetts who allegedly benefited from a heavy protective tax on domestic buttons to curb foreign competition. He argues such taxes are secured through personal influence on the Ways and Means Committee.
The piece argues that protectionist policies swing from gains in lower freights to renewed calls for tariffs as soon as costs fall. It likens repeated patches of policy to a man mending clothing with scraps, leaving a rag in the end, and critiques dredging, navigation acts, and subsidies as costly cycles. It cites Professor W. G. Sumnen.
The article argues protection builds a local market for farm products but the gain comes from proximity to towns, not protection itself. It questions spreading towns near every farm and warns that vast lands would remain uncultivated. Manufacturing grows around strong centers, not per farm fortifications.
Quoted remark ties lam to protection and free trade. Garfield states modern scholarship supports free trade in a House of Representatives address dated April 1, 1870. The snippet reflects 19th century economic argument and legislative context.
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