The evening times., 1911-06-01
R. |. kINGMAN'S STATEMENT BEFORE
THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE

of it goes in the shape of flour. di-
rect from our American mills to these
countries. We sell to Cuba, the West
Indies, and Bermuda one-third as
much flour as We sell to Great Bri-
tain.
No Hard Wheat Exported
Our milling interests are of much
vast magnitude, as compared With
other countries, that a large advant-
age is thereby gained in the lower
cost Of manufacture. Germany,
Great Britain, Belgium and the Meth
erlands are eliminated from compe-
tftion with our mills by virtue of
their not milling sufficient to supply
their home needs. We export none
Of our northern wheat say none,
practically none-except as flour, and
have not for number of years. ALI
our high-grade wheat, every bushel
of 1t, is needed at home. 1t is a
fact that our millers can mix south
ern winter wheat with our high
grade northern wheat to the extent
some years of forty to fifty per cent
and not lower the standard of their
flour.
There is another feature that en-
ters into this 10-cent premium not
accounted for in the table of prices
which l will ask to have filed. The
comparison is based upon the No. 1
northern grade in both countries
while as matter Of fact No. 2
northern in Canada is equivalent to
our No. l northern in the United
States, making a difference in the
two grades alone of 2 or 8 cents.
Not only that, but within the last
two or three years competition with
Minneapolis by the southwest and
Buffalo has given us premium for
our cash wheat of from 2 to 21h
cents. In that same connection the
prosperity of some of the farmers in
the winter wheat states has enabled
them to hold in their bins large por-
ton CT their crop and to that extent
helping to reduce the visible and in
some degree affecting the price they
receive. After the opening up of the
northwest in the eighties and early
nineties some of these states prac-
tically gave up the production of
wheat. Iowa practically gave up its
production, not entirely but largely
SO, but with the increased price of
the last few years the states of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Oklaho-
ma, Missouri, Texas, Kansas and
North Carolina have increased its
production and some Of them have
raised the largest crops in their his
tory within the last five years. The
winter wheat states produced last
year 464,000,000 of cur 695,000,000
crop. Illinois acreage of wheat is
one-fourth that of her corn; Ohio
two-third; Indiana, one-half that of
her acreage Of corn; Oklahoma, one
Kansas, one-half that of her acreage
Of corn. The corn states seldom
raise to exceed three crops of corn
without rotation to clover, and in or
der to seed their lands to clover 1t
seems necessary to seed either with
wheat or oats. Their acreage seeded
to oats taken together with that seed
ed to wheat makes an average for
these states of more than two-thirds
that acreage planted in corn. 1t is
this system Of conservation of soil
fertility by rotation of crop that has
enabled the corn states to produce
their present enormous crops of corn
at the same time producing the larg-
est yields of wheat and oats in their
history.
1t is the prosperity of these middle
states that has permitted them to
keep back in their bins the invisible,
or at least large portion of the
invisible, to the extent of from a
hundred to hundred and fifty mil
lion bushels, and to that extent in
fluencing the prices they have re-
ceived fer their production. That
has had tendency to increase this
premium which we enjoy. We con-
tend and it is conceded by a large
percentage OF the commission and
milling interests of the northwest
that our home supply and demand to-
gether with home conditions more
largely enter into the making of our
price-and in fact is making our
price more largely than Liverpool.
Our millers are able to export two
thirds of our exportable surplus. 1t
runs all the way from fifty to sixty
five per cent to countries that have
no particular relations with Liver
pool. Now. if you remove this bar
rier and admit Canadian wheat, and
it is not perhaps the 25,000,000 that
might come in today or tomorrow
but the possibilities of what will
come in the future that stares us in
the face. and while perhaps in theory
you would not change the worlds
supply you would destroy the condi-
tions that give to us the premium we
now enjoy. They have very largely
increased the production of wheat
in northwestern Canada. particularly
in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The
Minneapolis millers want that wheat.
If they got all they wanted of that
Canadian high-grade wheat they
would not want or need any of the
southwestern or middle states winter
wheat. They tell me at Minneapolis
and l believe it is true-that the
competition for the southern and
southwestern wheat of Nebraska,
Kansas, Missouri and other states
has increased their premium more
than it has to us in the northwest.
l can not give you the exact per-
centage of winter wheat crop that
has been shipped to Minneapolis to
be ground with our own northern
wheat in the last year.
Senator Kern. To what extent do