Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-02-09
Laws Acainst Options.


 A singular and rather amusing feature of the situation is that they arc having exactly the samC kind of a quarrel in Ger many, with the same complaints and al most the same remedies proposed. The latest communication from Hon. Charles de Kay, our consul general at Berlin. tells of general conventions of tho agricul- turistS and presents figures showing that, although they pay less wages than arc paid in England and but one-third of ours, they are producing wheat at an actual loss. Almost every remedy suggest ed by the POpulists and every bill advocat- ed by Chairman Hatch has strenuous ad- vOcates there. and the landowners con Vcntion in SaXOny early in January recom- mendcd government silos and warehouses, with certificates to the producer on which he could borrow, while other conventions declared for strict laws against option sales and a radical reform in the finances of the empire"
 MT. dc Kay hints that the discontontcd Germans go much further in the direction of socialism than any farmer in this country has yet ventured to propose and gives some long and unpronOuncCahlo German names of the societies they are trying to organize. All the farmers know that the government estimates the wheat crop of last year at 460 0OO, ,00O bushels, and that the rival bureau out west puts 1t some 90, GOO, GOO bushels larger, but the important fact on which all authorities agree is that the acreage is not increasing, and the crap average for the past two years is dcCrvaSing, and that a powerful economic law has come to the farmer aid
 Whenever an article of general desire is grCatly YACaWVnCd. the consumption in creaSes greatly. but when the price again rises consumption does not corresponding ly fall off, for the habit of use has been established. Thero are at least loo. 0OO GOO morc people using wheat than there were l2 years ago, anal yet 5,UU0,OU culOrcd people and l. QUO. GOO whites in the far south Use corn bread almost exclusively. And this brings mo to the grcatCSt myS- tCry in the business. and ono which the department cannot explain. IL k the most notorious of well known facts that the corn crop las declined rapidly fnr four years, and that last year it was at least 10 per cent smaller than the crupof 1o:t0, and yet all tie commercial Insults are tho same as if there had hrcn great increase. The department estimates the crop Uf last year at l.3l:i. uUu. OU0 bushels. the smallest since lNNl. In lNll the crop Was 2.O,0. O00 QUO, and in l>"3 it had declined to 1,6lH.rsni uOU. Now it is certain tEat thcrc wlS no surplus left over; that the stock on hand at the beginning of this year i> extremely small: that exports Lave decrra>, $. but a triilC, and that Con>ump- tiun has hcyA fairly maintained, and yet tho price of corn is steadily guinG down. | It knock my arithmetic Here is where | the siIycritvr Srt in their work. All We can say by way of conclusion iS that con, sumption of grain is once moro gaining on production, and that, financial trou- bles aside there appears upol the horizon | a faint Hlc;im uf hope for the farmer, the advices from all nations pointing, though I somewhat Ch>cUr1ly. t0 the approach cf a | better day J. E. PAGKE.