Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1922-02-17

| SOIlG QUIET COuHLIiGS III LuAOpC hofO
apparently tried to prove that paper
money limited only to the speed of
printing presses was good money.
The old-time greenbackers became OBJ
sessed with the same idea during a
period of agricultural depression in
this country, but the good sense of
our people, as a whole, prevented the
adventure into fairyland. We must
neither initiate our currency nor try
price fixing in times of peace. Our
present difficulties are largely the
fruitage of price fixing of agricultural
products during the war.
Many farmers have been aggrieved
at the tumbling prices of grain and
other of their products, compared to
the mine of wealth found in producing
those things during the war. Perhaps
it is not unnatural that they should
feel hurt; but if we are to attain per-
manent prosperity we must avoid
quack nostrums advocated by those
who either do not know results or
have something loose neal the place
where their mats are worn.
Our government might today decree
that the minimum price for wheat
should be even as low as $1.60 per
bushel, but exports would imme-
diately cease and we would keep the
greater part of our wheat instead of
getting the SLIGO. We would also be
required to absolutely prohibit the
entrance of wheat from any other
country or else our consumers would
surely feed on bread, the wheat for
which was grown in the rich fields of
Argentina, Australia, Canada or some
other country, with a surplus which
they are as anxious to dispose of now
as are u w grain growers.
If we could keep their products out
of this country they could not buy the
products of our industrial establish
ments, unemployment would rapidly
increase, the power of our own citi-
zens to purchase would decrease, and
an almost unheard of depression
would cloud over farming and all
other occupations. Even the tax gath
erers would find little taxes to collect.
What would happen with wheat may
be applied as we'll to oats, corn, beef,
pork, lamb, wool and a number of
other staple commodities.
To attain even normal prosperity
we must produce, buy and sell many
things in competition with the other
countries of the world. Such a tariff
as helped us wonderfully when as a
growing nation we were young in
years, might prove to be a disaster
now. European countries owe us bill
lions and they are practically bank
rupt. We cannot safely try any
strangulation policy on them; it would
strangle this country also and we
would soon be as bad off as they. We
INDUCED in war madness and are now
paying the penalty. The farmer got
hit first; that was unfortunate, but
unavoidable. The remedy is not in
fixing arbitrary prices for either pro-
ducts or labor, if we are to compete
with world markets, and we must com
pete else we will have more than we
can consume at home and wage earn
ers unable to buy the products OF
farm and factory.
We must continue to grow the best
our farms will produce at the lowest
possible cost. We may help marketing
by cooperation and do something to
lessen the margins between producer
and consumer, but there is. no magic
wand in the hands of anybody which
can be safely used to defy the natural,
economic laws the world must face.
We can live more economically and
practice thrift as our fathers were
forced to do and we must, because we
will search in vain for a remedy which
will bring war profits after the war is
over.
Although it takes but five hours for
a normal tide to run one way, and
seven hours the other, the normal ebb
and flow are the same with the excep-
ton that after an extremely high tide
there is an extremely low one. 1t is
action and reaction from a normal
point. AS the equator is approached
the rise and fall show gradual de-
crease until there is little difference
in depth of water at the top or bottom
of the tide, while in the Bay of Fundy
the rise and fall is greatest.
Business conditions are we'll illus
trated in the action of the tides. A
war raises the tides high in business
and farming, just as an easterly wind
increases the water tides which are
highest in storm periods. What goes up
must come down, however, and we
must adjust ourselves to this truth
rather thar to try and defeat the tides.
There is scarcely an industry, or
business in the country which has not
been hit, and millions have been lost
since the war in the falling tide. Each
class feels that it has been hit hard