The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1925-12-30
WILL THE SHOE BE ON
THE OTHER FOOT
IN FORTY YEARS?
(Algona Advance)


Wallace's Farmer peers into the
future and foresees a time when
price relations between agriculture
and industry will be the other way
about from what they are now. Ev-
| cry year sees this country's urban
| population growing at the expense
of the country. In forty or fifty
years there will be three or four town
inhabitants for every one on the farm.
Then there will be a demand for all
the agricultural products the farm
ers can raise, and agricultural prices
| will be correspondingly high.
When that day comes there will be
great grumbling in urban circles. The
cost of living will become vital is
sue, and there will be class wars, ac-
eompanied by strikes. But the ur-
banites will not be able to help them
selves much, Wallace's Farmer be-
lieves. The same laws Of economics
that rule now will be in effect then,
and demand will make the prices o.
farm products high.
But there are some Ifs" in this
program, as we see it. In the first
place, there is an "if' on the question
whether production can be speeded up
to meet and overcome demand. Any
one who conducts even a brief exam
ination viii be astonished to find how:
means of speeding up production have
often in the past accomplished the
seemingly impossible. III industrial
pursuits one man now does many
things with the aid of machinery that
it used to take a score to do.
Of course, what is known as the
law of Diminishing returns figures
in the case of agriculture, as it does
not, or at least not to the same ex-
tent, in industry. This law is that
the more effort you put forth the less
the rate of increase becomes, till fin
ally you reach the vanishing point.
In other words, if you can make the
soil produce so bushels an acre Of d
given crop with a given amount OF
effort, you cannot double the output
by doubling the effort. Agriculture
doesn't work out that way. You can
double your effort, but you have To
be satisfied with less than double the
output. And as you go on increas-
ing effort the ratio of increase de.
creases accordingly.
Nevertheless it is possible enOr-
mously to increase production in this
country once production can be slim
ulated by profitable returns. And it
is question whether in only forty or
fifty years we shall have reached the
point where increased effort no long
ar results in increased production.
Another "if' involves the question
whether forty years from now the
farmer can hold the tariffs that do
him little good now, but might be
worth lot then. Today the tariff
does not act on many agricultural
products because we produce sur
plus. The natural consequence is
that the farmer can get almost any
thing that he wants in the way OF
tariffs. They cost consumers little
or nothing, and there is therefore no
cutlery against them.
But how will it be when agricul-
\ tuTdl pTOOuCto SIOW mSA-PAASC0 ais
scarce? Will not the urban popula-
ton then demand lowering or remov-
al entirely of the tariffs on agricu!-
tural products. And having voting
power Of three or four to one, will
they not Overvote the farmer willy
nilly, and expose him to the compe-
tition of the world? That win sure
ly happen unless human nature
changes wonderfully in the next for
ty years, and no such change is to be
looked for.
| Somehow this problem of price re-
lationship between agriculture on the
one hand and industry on the other
has got to be equitably settled, and
will be, long before the time Wal.
lace's Farmer forsees. We do moi
know how it will be done, but we
have confidence that a way win be
found.