Daily Kennebec journal., 1911-04-24
Kings Law and Influx Of Canadian
Supplies

Does anyone know how much pr
due" will break aur market Has af.y
. committee OF tins Hoase iHS cstigatt d
!. ths great problem before plunging
: ahead to reverse Tie economic polies
of century and a quarter! We do
not krow on this floor. bu, one :hing
W. can do is to examine the general
nature of markets. More than 2o9
years ago Gregory King discoI red the
law of prices that bears his nam.
Tina: law which Prof. Thofold Rogers
tells us is not thought of in times of
ligh and low prices as il should be is
as follows:
In i commodity Il surplus of one
tenth lowers the price belov' the com
mon rate threC-tenths: tVu-teaths
lowers the price below III, common
rat eight -tenths: three -t-nths lowers
the iriee below tho common rate six
teen tenths; four-tenths lowers the
lIiee below the common rate twenty
eight tenths; five-tenths lowers the
price below the common rate forty-fve
tenths.
This law, called by high authority
zone of the most important general
izatiOns in Statistics. must not he
neglected in the vast problem before
us today.
In connection with this law of
Gregory King, the potato situation i'll
the United States is worth considering.
While the consumer in the cities has
found potato prices high the farmers
know that potatoes have been low,
around - cents bushei. our own
fa cd
home market great as that is our
manufacturing industries alone dis
bursting to their officers and employees,
who are consumers, over $4,000, 100000
a year in salaries aud wages. Do you
know how little of acreage partici-
pates in the overproduction that
knocks down the potato market-to
the producer not to the consumer
necessarily? Potatoes are produced
all over the United States to an extent
that meets u large proportion of the
local demand, but Is counties in what
are called the five potato states
Maine. New York. Michigan, Wiscon
sin. and Minnesota. make up the deficit
and produce this year the o-tenths.
or fiVe-tenths of surplus, which, under
Gregory Kings law, drives down the
price ighttenths or forty-five tenths.
Our 13 counties are liable to overstock
even our magnificent home market,
where $3.000.000,000 of industrial
wages are floating about, and our po-
tato farmer prospers only because he
gets good years in with the bad. But
add to our Is counties the acreage of
the great potato Provinces of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick. and Quebec.
with the hope of our nearby home
market to stimulate their farmers. and
bad years must inevitably be constant.
Their whole surplus will pour over our
line, because they have no home mar
ket to absorb it, The industrial dis
bursements of those Provinces are but
4 little more than those of the little
kState of Rhode Island.
'Fu If you want to know the capacity of
the potato land of New Brunswick
will cite YOU to the fact that the single
Maine county of Aroostook, which lies
adjacent to New Brunswick and has
similar land produced in 1909 about
one-tenth OF the entire potato crop of
the United States. / understand that
the legislature of New Brunswick, like
the legislature of Maine, has withheld
its sanction from this trade agree
ment. Some gentlemen have thought
this strange. 1t seems to me that
there is nothing strange in it. If. un-
. der the glittering lure of the American
market, Canada, develops her potato
land s-and today she is not doing it,
for want of a market-she win make