The Washington herald., 1913-04-20

high cost OF living, and this, Of course.
would be added to wherever motors, can
be substituted for horsefiesh. 1t Is not
too much to say that IL modern methods
for handling package freight can be sub
stituted for the medieval procedure that
now goes on in railroad freight sheds.
transfer yards and terminals, and II
our railway stations were all accessible
by good roads. an amount equal to the
annual expense of this government plus
the national debt and the expense OF all
our States probably could be saved every
year.
This, of course. takes in only one
great element in the cost of distribution
Another defect would be remedied II we
could bring about more cooperative
form Of buying and selling. AT present
many of our retail shops operate on a
most inefficient basis from an economic
standpoint. and the cost of this ineffi-
cheney has to be added to the price OF
the goods.
But the element of inefficiency In
production, whether it be on the farm
or in the mill, is one Of the greatest
factors i'm the present high cost OF living.
No wonder we have to pay SO much Tor
food and for products of the farm when
the farms produce so little compared
with those in other lands 1t ought to
be a source of pride to the farmers that
they get at least as much out of their
soil as farmers in other countries do
Unfortunately, the fact is that they DO
not. There is a marked progress In this
direction, and the best results We are
getting are worthy Of comparison with
those anywhere yet our average is low,
for almost every civilized nation excels
us far in the amount Of production per
acre.
Our Soil and Germany's.
Our soil is as productive potentially
as Germanys, but we raise about one
half the wheat at the average that she
does So with potatoes, though there
are occasional localities where We equal
her record. The Department of Agricul-
ture does fine work In encouraging the
corn clubs, which teach boys to take
an acre from their fathers farms and
make their fathers look like cents by
producing. say, 100 bushels. where the
father has produced thirty. This eff
cheney is the strongest blow at the cost
of living. With production increased by
such efficiency the ratio of all forms OF
cost would be cut down; the relative
expense of handling and hauling would
be diminished, and the middlemen and
farmers will sell for less money than
which costs them less and reap as great
or a greater profit. Give our soil a
chance to see what it will do when
treated as soil should be. We have
grown amazingly i'm numbers in the last
fifty years, but the food supply has not
grown i'm proportion, largely because We
have not done our work in the best way
in which we know how to do 1t.
But to return to the effect of the
tariff, ! would say that the tariff is an
abnormal obstacle to the free flow of
commerce. Just so far as this obstruc-
ton increases the cost to the consumer
1t will, IL removed, reduce the cost OF
living. But the removal of high tariff
taxes will only be the beginning of the
in the cost of li,tng, which is
necessary Wise legislation may help in
the fight to cut this cost down, but the
people themselves must understand the
elements of the problem and try to deal
with them all.'