The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1925-05-14


ference between what the farmers has
to pay for what he buys and what he
gets for what he sells If nothing Is
consciously done to relieve the situs-
ton. AT the end of L at time, they
tell Us, there will be another maiad-f
justnient Of prices, but this time In
favor of the farmer, with great and
smwholesome increase in the cost Of
living to the so called consuming
classes, with its attendant distress"
Next, Mr.. Lowden dissectod the fall
acious reasoning of the ecity folks when
Int comes to Judging the farm problem
| from their economic standards. Ac-
| scrding to the classical economists Of
a century ago. he explained, ,--and our
| political economy today is based large
ly on the teachniss~-the competitive
| principle is the all powerful and cons
| trolling factor in the business world.
They deducted from the @iron law of
wages" under which wages never could
rise above the point of bare subsist-
ance. Under the law labor was doomed
/ forever to life little above that Of the
beasts Of the field
"Thoy now see that the "iron law
OF wages" has gone into the discard"
said Gov. Lowden. Former Presi-
dent Hodley OF Yale, one of the fore
most economists Of his time, says:
''Those OF us who we're brought up on
the old fashioned text books Of polit-
ical economy can hardly conceive how
small part Of the prices or wages or
rents Of the world have actually been
determined by coInpetitionl" We are
, coming to learn that unrestricted COM
petition is not clothed with all the vir-
tues It was once thought to possess.
Unrestricted. competition Ia form Of
warfare. Whether among the nations
Of the world for larger armAments, or
. among the producers of useful COM
modities, 1t has been found to entail
losses TO society for beyond the bene-
fits it has conferred,
High Prices, No Crops
Illustrating his point Gov. Lowden
called attention to the recent state
ment issued by the Dept Of Agricul-
ture on the estimated value Of farm
crops for last year which we're her
aided In the cities as another proof
that the farmer had come into his own,
for 1t was found that the total value
of farm crops for the year was three
quarters Of billion dollars In excess
Of the value Of the crops the year be-
fore. Welcome news--but the corn
crop was twenty per cent smaller than
the crop OF the preceding year. The
total value however exceeded that Of
the preceding year by two hundred
million dollars. The quality Of the
crop was far below that of the pre-
ceeding year.
"And yet under marketing system,
which 1t is claimed is one of the most
noteworthy achievements of this COM
! mercial age, the smaller crop of in
ferior corn was worth rlore in the
market than the large and superior
crop OF the year before"
Then Gov. Lowden proceeded TO
show how the farmer is caught on the
horns Of his marketing delema.
THE cause Of this lesser and infer
tor crop was cold, wet summer" he
said. 1T was summer disastrous for
J corn but very favorable for the growth
Of grasses. There was therefore an
increase in the production Of milk with
the result that something like hum
dred million pounds more Of butter
was produced in 1924 than in the year
before. This was only five per cent
i Continued on page 81