The Carlisle independent., 1920-10-14
Motor Trucks On The Farm

The Agricultural Department has been obtaining the views of farmers in the corn-belt, and S31 of them who have motor trucks are almost unani nous in the opinion that they will prove eventually profitable invest ment However, results show that the motor truck has not reduced farm expenses to any degree up to the present time, and were it not for the fact that the farmers agree that it saves "time," it is doubtful whether the new acquisition to rural activities would be in the popular class. It has been determined that the average truck used on a arm travels 2,777 miles a year, and the cost of opera tion is almost seventeen cents a mile, making the total cost of one of these "pesky critters" about S470 a year.
 Adjusting The Economic Law
 The good news has been going the rounds that prices are tumbling down, and everyone except someone who sees his own profits cut, is happy over the announcements that appear daily in the newspapers. If it were true that the sellers had this whole prob lem in their keeping, as many sup pose, then we would find commodity after commodity being raised in price with the new freight rates being off fered as an excuse. But it Is mis- take to suppose that manufacturers and wholesalers control the situation for they in turn have to deal with new labor problems, new methods of mar keting, increased charges for their supplies, and conditions in industry that they could not have dreamed of when they engaged in business. The economic law is a good deal like the digestive apparatus of human be- ing, and no one will assume that the latter is able to function naturally when 1t is being stuffed to withstand trenches and service. But the eco homie law. like the digestion, usually adjusts itself some way or other. Just now the country is witnessing the struggles of the economic law to reg ulate and adjust itself, and there is every evidence that the American peo- pie are coming out of the present era of high prices al right. In the pro cess it behooves them to abide by the old advice to keep their feet warm and their heads cool" and incidental " the more calamity howlers they swat day by day, the sooner will the country get back to an economic con- dition that is good for everybody.
 Trouble In Government Shipping
 The Shipping Board is quite ready to adopt the custom that has obtained in paying commissions on cargoes. The privately owned ships have been giving the Government a little the worst of it, and 1t is now proposed to meet them on their own grounds, and to grant commissions for obtaining cargoes. A rate below per cent will likely be adopted One of the big troubles that the Government has had to face is the custom of ship officers to obtain commissions" from dealers who furnish supplies to their ships. Captains and pursers, and other off cers, have grown rich on these fees in the past. However, the Govern ment regards the custom as a species of graft that it cannot, and will not countenance. Private ship-owners who paid small salaries to their off cers, winked at the custom, and ac- cepted it as something they could not help.
 The Shipping Board complains that American business interests are placing their marine insurance with foreign companies, in preference to the American Merchant Marine Syn dicate, causing "the unnecessary flow of millions of dollars of marine pre- miums to the other side, and the use of marine insurance by our competi- tors as commercial weapon against our interests, and inability on our part to properly safeguard commer- cial information"
 COrnfed Cattle In Nebraska
 The Department of Agriculture in cooperation with the University of Nebraska, determined that the aver age cost of cornfed cattle laid down at the market was S14.91 per hun dredweight for 2,295 head fed in the