Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-06-20
Wheat Prices and Protection.

w uC1t l I1Cco duu 1OtCOIAOA'
The approach of the time when Dick
inson county and Kansas will send to
market millions on millions of bushels
of golden wheat, makes the farmer be-
gin to study the question of his revenue
therefrom.
The statement is made in the Chi
cago News that the natural price of
wheat is its price in London and Liver
pool. Nothing would be more mis-
leading yet it is the favorite argument
of those who insist that a price estaD-
lished under protective tariff must be
an Artificial price.
1t ought to be plain to the most
casual observer that grain gambling,
for instance, might control the markets
of Liverpool and London, and eStab-
lish purely artificial prices there, as
well as in Chicago. Whether more
money would be required is not now
important. Established in the same
way, the price would be in every re-
Spect as artificial" Objectionable and
dangerous, so that it involves decep-
tiCn to imply that the market On either
side of the ocean is necessarily natural
or artificial. A price is artificial when
it does not express the desire of any
body who wants wheat, except as the
gambler wants the chips which repre-
sents the gains in his game. 1t is
natural when it expresses the desire of
those who want actual wheat for con-
sumption, in comparison with the de-
sire of those who have actual wheat to
sell.
The person who bets on the chances
of a gambling game is fiat or lamb.
As the professional gameSter ''corrects
tile luck'' by brace boxes, marked cards
and loaded dice, the operator manufac-
lures the price on which he bets, and
by the brute force of more money than
those can command who are trying to
manufacture prices the other way.
When the footpad with thick stick
offers the traveller nothing for his
watch, he manufactures a price for the
watch which-is exactly as natural as
the price fixed for the bushel of wheat
by men who are for the moment in any
market able to buy more than anybody
else can sell, or to sell more than any
body else can buy. That market for
watches is artificial, and the Chicago
market for wheat during most of the
last year has been artificial in the same
sense.
But" says the free-trader, ''that is
just what the tariff does; it enables the
manufacturer of particular article to
charge just what he pleases." Not at
all, because it leaves the field abSC-
lutely free to every other manufacturer
in the country to make the same
article, and to sell at lower price if
he likes. There is no monopoly for
anybody, and the price made expresses,
not the power of some one to mark up
a quotation in order to win a bet, but
the actual desire of consumers COM
pared with the desire of producers and
holders. The producer is restrained
in his charge by his knowledge that
others can make the same article, and
at certain price.
''Still, producers can and do combine
to fix prices and restrict production"
That is, they combine to defeat the
very object of the protective duty,
which is to encourage production and
secure permanent cheapness. So long
as they are able to defeat the tariff,
they can and do establish prices that
are not natural. Only the protective
law exposes them to far greater proba-
bilities of ruinous competition from
other people who have the power to
produce, and who are equally assured
of shelter against foreign competition.
Hence, it results that in almost every
case successful combinations to control |
prices have been in articles the pro-
duction of which is either not protected
Or not affected by protective duties.