Arizona republican., 1909-09-15
MIR. HILLS SPEECH.

MIR. HILLS SPEECH. Chicago, Sept. l4-"The idea that
 we feed the world Is being corrected.
 and unless we can increase the agri- cultural population and their product the question of a source of food sup- ply at home will soon supersede the question of market for our own pro- | ducts abroad" This was the warn
 ing given by James J. Hill at the con
 vention of the American Bankers as
 sociation today. during a discussion of
 the decline of agriculture and its con-
 sequences. Mir. Hills subject was
 National Wealth and the Farm"
 We have said the speaker, "already
 reached q point where, owing to the increased population without in
 creased production per acre. our home food supply will be insufficient for our
 own needs: within ten years. possibly less. we are likely to become a wheat importing nation; the percentage of the population engaged in agriculture
 and the wheat product per acre are both falling: at the same time the cosb
 of living is raised everywhere by this
 relative scarcity of bread. by artificial increase in the price of all manufac- tured articles. and by. a habit of eX-
 travagance which has enlarged the
 view of both rich and poor of-what are to be considered the necessaries
 of life. These plain facts should dis turb and arouse not only the economic student but the men who are most in-
 timately related to the wealth of the nation and most concerned that it shall not suffer loss or decreases"
 NIT. Hill declared that never yet has
 enhanced cost of living. when due to agricultural decline and inability to
 supply national needs. failed to end in
 national disaster.
 Mir. Hill said the farm Is our main reliance and that every other activ- fly depends on that He asserted. how
 ever, that the majority of people fail to realize practically the declining status of agriculture in the country
 They are misled by the statistics of
 farm values and products. mounting
 annually by great leaps. into thinking that this absolute increase implies
 relative advance of this industry as
 compared with others" said he. "Ex- actly the opposite is the case. I re- fer not merely to the quality and re- suits of our tillage, but to the setting of the human tide away from the cul tivated field and toward the factory gate or the city slum. This is some thing whose consequences for evil are as certain as if the aggregate deposits in all the banks of this country were decreasing by fixed percentage every | ten years. while their loans were in | creasing by another percentage just as stable. You would know what catas- | trophe that assured by and by.
 Tt means the same thing, in kind l and consequences, when the agricul- | tural population, the producers and l depositors in the great national treas ury of wealth, is declining year by year, | while the city population, which thrives | only by drawing drafts upon the land | and cannot live a year after these | cease to be honored, rises at its ex- pense. Yet not only is such a crisis | approaching, but it is being hastened | by legislative stimulation in favor of l other industries while overlooking | this.
 Tn 1790 only about 3.4 per cent of | the American people lived in towns At the time of the Civil War the per centage had risen to Is. In 1900 more than 31 per cent of our population | was urban. The change is portentious and there is no doubt that the coming | census will show it to have proceeded | in the last ten years with accelerated | speed. In spite of the warnings of economists, the amelioration of farm | life, the opening of new and attract i've employment on the land through | A. growth of infant industry, the en- couragement of public men and the wider dissemination of agricultural ed ucation, the percentage of our popula- tion who work on the farm constant ly declines. If that proceeds too far far it is as if dry-rot had eaten through the timbers supporting some great structure. We should consider now the change accomplished and that impending.
 With our annual increase of over Is per cent in population from natural causes. and immigration that has not been less than three-quarters of a | million any year since 1902, there will be from two to two and a half million more mouths to feed every year. Hay ing in view this increase in popula- ton. the declining average yield per acre of cultivated land in the United States after it had been farmed for a few years. the rise of per capita con- sumption with higher cost of living and the movement of the working population away from the land, the time is now approaching when we shall not only cease to be a wheat II selling nation but will find it neces- Il sary to import a portion of what we consume.
 "Our foreign trade in the past has rested mainly on our exports of pro ducts drawn from the earth directly, or only once removed. Our manufac- lures for exports are to a large ex- tent natural products subjected to a few simple processes. How are we to meet the immense trade balance against us: how prevent financial