We have protected agriculture in the past and up to this time In a lesser degree by the tariff upon such products as are imported and by increasing the.purchasing power of the wage earner by employment and high wages. While the farmer has been generally prosperous. as a rule in the past. under the amount of protection afforded him. his prosperity was not primarily out of the profit of his crops but out of the increase of the value of his lands by reason of a rapidly increasing population and a consequent demand for land. A large body of that increase of population was by immigration. We have cut off that cause and that profit. The profit on crops and livestock which was possible to the farmer in the prewar and midwar periods have been reduced to less than nothing by the aftermath of the war. which exposed him directly to the cheap world market on his export surplus of wheat. corn. cattle. swine. and their products.
Keywords matched
immigration