The Nevada County picayune., 1922-01-19

processes that are carried 10 the hIgn- est degree of finished production com. patible with the large trade 1t has built up. All this is generally conced- ed to be to the advantage of the con- sumer. Nor does the steel corporation inconsiderately dump its products on the market. On the contrary, 1t so acts that It Is frequently a stabilizing influence, as Is often the case with oth- CT large organizations. It is master of its distribution as we'll as of It's pro- duction. If prices are not satisfactory the products are held back or produc- ton is reduced or suspended. It Is not compelled to send a years work to the market at one time and take whatever 1t can get under such circumstances. It has one selling policy and its own export department. Neither are the grades and qualities of steel determin- ed at the caprice of the buyer, nor does the latter hold the scales. In this sin gle integration of the steel corporation is represented about 10 per cent of the steel production of America. The rest Is mostly In the hands of few large companies. In ordinary times the steel corporation, by example, stabilizes all steel prices If this Is permissible Git Is even desirable, because stable and fair prices are essential to solid and continued prosperity why would 1t be wrong for the farmers to utilize central agencies that would have simi- lar effects on agricultural products? Something like that is what they are aiming at
 Some farmers favored by regional compactness and contiguity, such as the citrus -fruit-raisers of California, al- ready have found way legally to merge and sell their products inte- grally and in accordance with seasonal and local demand. thus improving their position and rendering the con sumer a reliable service of ensured quality, certain supply, and reasonable and relatively steady prices. They have not found it necessary to resort to any special privilege, or to claim any exemption under the antitrust legislation of the state or nation With out removing local control, they have built up very efficient marketing agency. The grain. cotton, and to- bacco farmers, and the producers of hides and wool, because of their num- bers and the vastness of their regions, and for other reasons, have found integration more difficult task; though there are now some thousands of farmers cooperative elevators, warehouses, creameries, and other en- terprises of one sort and another, with a turnover of billion dollers a year. They are giving the farmers business experience and training, and, so far as they go, they meet the need of honest weighing and fair grading; but they do not meet the requirements of ratfonally adjusted marketing In any large and fundamental way.
 The next step, which will be pat tern for other groups, Is now being prepared by the graln-raisers through the establishment of sales media which shall handle grain separately or col lectively, as the individual farmer may elect. 1t Is this step-the plan of the Committee of Seventeen-whic has created so much opposition and is thought by some to be in conflict with the antitrust laws. Though there Is now before congress measure de- signed to clear up doubt on this point, the grain-producers are not relying on any immunity from antitrust legiSla- ton. They desire. and they are en- titled. to coordinate their efforts just as effectively as the large business ln- terests of the country have done. In connection with the selling organiza- tions the United States Grain Growers Incorporated is drafting a scheme of financing instrumentalities and auXill- ary agencies which are indispensable to the successful utilization C modern business methods
 It is essential that the farmers should proceed gradually with these plans, and aim to avoid the error of scrappng the existing marketing ma chinery. which has been so laboriously built up by long experience. before they have q tried and proved substi tute or supplementary mechanism, They must be careful not to become enmeShed in their own reforms and lose the perspective of their place in the national system. They must guard against fanatlcal devotion to new doe trines and should seek articulation with the general economic system rather than its reckless destruction as 1t relates to them.