Norwich bulletin., 1920-12-03

are preparing to burn corn for fuel They simply can't sell their corn for enough to buy coal with an equivalent amount of heating capacity. They are going to burn their corn in their stoves-as thou sands of farmers did once before under similar stress, because there isn't de- mand for it sufficient to pay fer market ing it.
 So with pork, so with onions, SD with cabbages; so with nearly all the products of the farm They've been turnbling in price all the fall Farmers in une New York county where hundred-acre cab hage fields are not uncommon and from which eabbages are usually shipped by the train load, farmers in this county are feeding the crop to their COWS because there iss no demand for them for human consumption. .
 The great American people which six months ago, was chasing it's legs off in it's mad haste to find somebody who would take it's money for useless luxu- ries has utterly reversed its course and is now refusing to buy what it used to call "necessities' unless it can get them at a reduced price, half off, and with | a disco ant for cash!
 We farmers got the news first. It came to US, early in the fall, when, po- Ct | a peck to seveI@s@ye cents a bushel. It has come repeatedly, since then, when similar blows have fallen on fields de- voted to other products. Some of us have been wondering quite awhile whether we should be able to get through the winter without having to fall back on the tur- nip and mangel bins for something to l eat.
 Now the same news has reached the ! I While the manufacturers raw materials have fallen somewhat, the wages of la l bor the cost of power, and the exactions of transportations have steadily increas- | ed. They cannot continue to make goods i unless they can sell them at some profit | That implies high prices. They cannot sell them at any profit if the public re- fuses to buy them except at low prices Consequently they shut down.
 The employees have been demandine and getting higher and higher wages. Not only the factory's employees, but also the coal miners whose wages make up. much 1 of the cost of coal, and the railway mer whose wages make up much of the cos of transportation. Now there are many of them out of work at the very open ing of winter, because the public won buy their products at price to insure { I
 And there you are. Farmers dispiritet and gloomy over their inability to sel their crops at a living price; manufact- urers shutting down by the score and th" hundred because they can't sell theil wares unless at asloss.: workingmen anC working women suddenly deprived of al or nearly all their income. And foul months of winter on the threshold.
 If ever there was time specially made for the pessirnist this is it. "Tak' courage" says one of Kipling's charac ters ''the worst is yet to come t'' Every indication of the present, every experience | of the past seems to suggest that this il true of things now. Personally, I am no a pessimist will this rain ever stop?' asked a querulous passenger of the olC sea captain. Tt always has. Madam, was his response. I always expect any Istorm to clear up, sometime, I always take 1t for granted that a good many folks will get wet before the rain stops Some whose recklessness in rainbow chasing has. led them far afield without rubbers or umbrellas; and some who have to go out and drive in the cows ant sheep. The first may deserve their soak ing and the second may not, but both vii get it. just the same.
 1 The present disturbance will, doubt less, pass away with the coming of 2 general Comprehension of it's causes Such disturbances always have passed away, even when they have been as bat or worse than this.
 One thing Is dead sure: If the con suming public won't any longer pay ex. travagant prices for products then ex' travagant costs for making those pro ducts must be cut out. If the farmer ii to sell cheap potatoes, he must have cheap land and cheap labor. If the man ufcaturer is to sell cheap goods, he must have cheap materials and cheal labor No man is going to make a bus mess of selling potatoes at dollar z busheI or cloth at dollar a yard, if i costs him a dollar and half to raise tht bustel of potatoes or make the yard o cloth.
 In other words. it is perfectly cleal that wages, whether on farms or in fac tories or on railroads or in mines must sooner or later, come down as cabbage and clothes and shoes and sugar hay already.
 And it won't be the employing farme nor the employing manufacturer who vii
 force them down, but the people as
 whole who are now refusing and prob ably will continue refusing to pay tn high prices of which high wages are tn present chief cause.
 THE FARMER.