An open letter, from Mr. C. C. Colby, M.P.

adopting a moderately protective policy.I intended, also, to consider what I deem a grand Free Trade fallacy, namely, that moderate protection invariably enhances the cost of goods to the consumer, and to show that, in most instances, home competition sufficiently reduces prices, andthat, were it otherwise, the numerous indirect benefits of home manufactures and home markets would com- pensate for a very considerable enhancement of price.Who. for • ir? t s jl instance, can estimate tho benefit to the farmer, that ho has at hia door manufactories of boots and shoes, clothing, furniture, foundry-goods and implements, whore tho products arc procurable without the agency ot numerous middlemen and where they arc all adapte I to his special needs?Why is it, that the farmers of the Western States, whero harvest labor [a two to three dollars per day, aro able to produce wheat, transport it a thousand miles by rail and three thousand miles by sea and compete in Europe with tho water freighted wheat of Russia, where harvest labor ia procurable at ten cents per day?The perfection and infinito variety of lab)r saving machinery, which arc the direct result of mechanical skill, invention and opportunity stimulated and developed by protected manufacture in the country,(the condition and needs of the farmer being thoroughly understood by the mechanic who serves him) largely con- tribute to the American and Canadian farmer's ability to compete in cereals with the cheap farm labor of Europe.If the farmer complains that he pays a profit on tho needed implements, he should also recollect that, but for the sj'stem of-which I speak, tho implements might not have been produced or be procurable at any price.Hon.Mr. Mills, at Fergus, and Mr. Charlton in the IIouso of Commons, have attempted to make Canadian farmers happy by the idea that the American consumer pays the duties upon farm products exported to the United States.They marshal a long array of figures, borrowed from United States Custom IIouso returns, which, if correct, show a very con- siderable advance in tho prices of horses, horned cattle, sheep, wheat, wool, barley, rye and other cereals, from the abrogation of the Treatydown to the present time.One fact is clearly established, but it is not the one they aim at, namely, that during the period of high protection in tho United States, the prices of these articles in the United States markets have very materially advanced -indeed that they have advanced more than thirty per cent, as will appear by adding the United States Customs duties to the prices at which these articles are entered.That tho American farmer has had the full advantage of this re- markable increase of price, is not to bo disputed.But that the Canadian exporter has had a similar advantage, is by no means established.On the contrary, the Eastern Townships farmer knows that when an American drover pays to his neighbor living across the line, two hundred dollars for a pair of oxen and pays him only one hundred and sixty- seven dollars for a pair of similar size, condition and quality, that tho difference of $33 going to tho United States Treasury, is a direct loss to him and not to the American consumer.Similarly, the Nova Scotia farmer knows that the buyer of potatoes for tho Boston market pays to the farmer in Maine 16 cts.per bushel

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