The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-02

i respect to price movements.
 1 The Western varieties of tobacco are a natural monopoly of Kentucky, the production elsewhere being immateriaI. The soil and the climate are especially adapted to the growth of the best types of smoking and chewing tobacco, in consequence of which Kentucky leaf has worldwide sale. Attempts to :! grow it in other countries result in the | production os an inferior article, which require to be mixed with the real type in order to be marketable.
 l A product of such universal use and so limited in quantity, while increasing rapidly in consumption, ought to ad- vance in price; but, Oil the contrary, this has declined. The reason for this is because the lions share of the profit has been absorbed by manufacturers. Scarcely any other business brings a 1 larger and surer return upon the capital invested than the conversion of the leaf 1 to the forms which go into use. The proof of this is to be found in the enor- 1 nous increase of the capitalization of ! the subordinate companies of the American Tobacco Company, which now 1 exceeds $400, 100000, and is still growing l by leaps and bounds. The original conl- pany was started about fifteen years 1 ago in comparatively humble fashion, but the creative genius of James B. i Duke has made it already a second i Standard Oil monopoly. Beginning with the manufacture of cigarettes and smoking tobacco, it has rapidly ab- sorbed all the principal producers in the i other lines of the trade. has invaded the markets of otker countries, and is pushing plans for further conquests. Of course the manufacture and sale of Kentucky tobacco is not all it does, but l Kentucky grows B per cent, of the whole American crop, and this constitu- l tes the most important part of the raw material out of the working up of which the Trust has heaped up it's hundreds of millions.
 l With such enormous profits in the business, both the trust and the expor- ters could afford to pay the Kentucky farmer double and triple the present prices and scarcely feel the added ex- i pense. Spain, France, Italy and Aus tria derive large part of their reve- nues from the monopolies their govern ments make of the trade, but the buy ing has been so managed as to pay only enough to have the farmer keep on pro- ducing. The government contracts aie let to firms which so compete with each other in the bidding that they pay a purely nominal price to the grower. The Italian regle contractor has ever gone to the country to buy of the pro- ducer exclusively, and other exporters have followed the same plan, which has been improved and enlarged by the American Tobacco company and it's subordinate corporations.
 It is no wonder that at last the plan ter has awakened to the necessity of concerted action. The first step neces- |, sary is the one of stopping the sales on the farm and coming to the open mar ket, where they can have all the buying competition that is possible. The terri tory to be covered Is so small and the l advantages to be .pained so obvious I that it is no wonder the planters are i planning to act in concert. It is their only chance to get a better return for an indispensable commodity by mar keting it in accordance witht the law of supply and demandS and not having the destructive competition of each grower against his fellow aThe buying power has been consolidated, and the selling forces ought to be concentrated if any thing like the value of the formers product is to be obtained. Experiments by farmers, usually wheat growers, on a smaller scale, have been tried success fully in the west, With great reduction ;. in the cost of handling and consdera- ble appreciation in prices, though wheat is an article of worldwide production, while our Kentucky tobacco comes from limited territory
 The experiment istcertainly an inter- esting one, and if properly handled is likely to materially change the situa- tion as between producer and manu- facturer.-Louisville Courier-Journal.