The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-02-12

Many people are troubled about the
industrial strikes that are reported from
/ day to day. but Of the most serious
strike Of ALL which is in prospect, one
hears very little. We can manage to
stand a strike in the textile mills and
the clothing industry, because, if worse
comes to worst, We could make ont with
our old garments for q whole year 4
strike of electrical workers would en-
barrass the country greatly, but so long
as there was food to eat the public might
worry along somehow. But what should
we all do if the farmers struck work on
raising food crops to sell? Starvation
would follow And precisely such a
strife as that is threatened.
In Russia, the peasants, in whose
hands the land now is, have put just
such a strike into effect They are not
giving up their food products Their
grain is in their bins, stored up against
the immediate needs of their own fam.
lies. They will sell neither their fat
cattle, their pigs, their milk. nor their
wool Why should they? The money
offered them is worthless. Means Of
transportation are paralyzcd. Still more
evil days are coming. The peasant keeps
his products, even hiding them beneath
the earth if necessary. The American
farmers situation is not precisely sim
liar to that of the Russian peasant. but
he openly declares, through the agricul-
tural journals, through the grange meet
ings, and privately to all and sundry,
that he is.tired Of producing food for
other people and letting the middle man
make all the money on it, and he is not
going 10 Dc it any more. Said a northern
Massachusetts, farmer to the writer OF
this: 81 can get enough for myself and
my family out of this place without sell
ing any food crop, aud | am going to do
it after this, The land il mine, and not
the countTy's / am through working
early and late to fatten somebody else.
On this theory Aroostook decides that it
will raise no more potatoes. Farmers all
through the East are killing or getting
rid OF their poultry stock. except what
they want for their own tables, Dairy
ing il being given up. In New England
there are plenty Of farms where the sac
riiicc of the timber would furnish cloth.
ing and all requirements Of the family
outside Of its food requirement, and the
farmer does not mind sacrificing the
timber, because there is nobody to come
after him on the farm,
1t is easy to see where the adoption of
this philosophy, if it prevailed all over
the country would lead. The farmers
would live--very poorly, to be sure, but
still somehow--and everybody else would
perish To answer it, the question would
have to be asked whether the farmer
really has Any right to behave in any
such manner Has the nation no inter
est in his production of food to sell as
well as to have? The English law. on
which our institutions are founded, says
that it has, It recognizes no absolute
private ownership of land. The absolute
title is in the crown, and the ownership
.of land in fee simple is but tenancy The
same principle prevails in this country,
with the state in the place Of the crown.
The law gives the legislature the SUI
preme power over the land It may read
lily be seen, therefore, that The state will
have something to say about the farm
er's abdicaton of his function as a pro-
ducer of food, if the farmer should at
tempt lt,--Boston Transcript.