But it will injure our farmers by providing still cheaper transportation for the products of their western competitors. Not many of them voted for this appropriation. but they must pay their share. Only a few years ago and after all the lands of this country. available for homesteads without irrigation were taken up. and the farmers of our State were in hopes that the flood of immigration would turn backward to occupy and redeem the abandoned farms of the East. our National Government entered upon large reclamation and irrigation projects in the arid and semiarid regions of the Rocky Mountains. thus making more land available for cultivation and more competitors for our farmers. But there is a limit to the possibilities of irrigation. and now when the time has come toward which our farmers have been looking. when the equilibrium is fairly established between the producers and consumers of foods in this country. when they may get better prices for their commodities. it is proposed to let down the tariff bars all along the line between this country and Canada and subject them to free competition with an empire on the north whose virgin soil and lowpriced lands and labor will make production of farm products much cheaper than in this country. Is it surprising that they should complain of unfair treatment and unjust discrimination?
Keywords matched
immigration