The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1926-01-15
FOREIGN MoNoPoLIEs
Statement By. Secretary of
Commerce Hoover

| nal ScOldS me Tor the suggestion OF
! the Administration to American
bankers that they should not make
loans to the foreign monopolies
which control the price OF import
products to American consumers.
The particular loans which the
Wall Street Journal seems TO favor
are those to the potash combination
and the coffee combination. l also
note that they realize that potash
is used principally by our cotton and
truck farmers and scarcely at all by
the great wheat and corn farmers"
No mention is made of the numer-
ical Importance OF the coffee con-
sumner.
The Government owes some con-
siderable responsibility to safeguard
the interests of the general con-
Stunning public. 1t appears to me
that the farm consumer of potash
and the household consumer of
coffee are important enough to gain
definite recognition in any considera-
ton. of this responsibility. 1t was
primarily to protect these consumers
that this advice was given, but it
might be added that the commits
sions which might be collected on
floating such loans would be no com
pensation to the American banking
community for the justitiable criti-
cism which would come to them
from the American potash and coffee
consumers when these consumers
became aware that American CAPT
tai was being placed at the disposal
Iof these agencies through which
prices were held against our own
people and which ii located upor
our own soil would be violation OF
our laws.
| Following is the Editorial pub
Tished in the Wall STREET. Journal OF
Jan. l, 1925 on which Mr. Hoove,
made the foregoing comment:
MR.. HOOVER'S HELPFULNESS
No country in the world could
boast a more jealous Secretary OF
| Commerce than Mr.. Hoover. He
made a great name for himself as
Tdirector and dictator in Belgium be
fore we entered the war, and he
was distinguished figure in world
engineering projects before then.
We can be grateful for his service.
even to the point of begging him not
to overburden himself. We have.
in Secretary Mellon, a man in charge
of our national finances second tc
none; and Mr.. Kellogg should be
able to run the State Department tc
the satisfaction not only OF President
Coolidge but of the American
people.
In the recent past Mr.. Hover di
rected/his opposition to the proposed
financing in New York of $40,
900, 900 loan to the German Potash
Syndicate, something of a monopoly
in its way. Lee Higginson 4 Co
therefore offered the loan in London
where it was sixteen times oversub
scribed in fifteen minutes. Hr.
Hoover seemed to think that the
German government should guar
antee something to the American
farmer consumer, or, in other words
embark upon policy of price
fixing.
AS that policy is vicious for any
country, we may be grateful that it
proved unnecessary. Potash is used
principally by our cotton and truck
farmers, and scarcely at all on the
great wheat and corn farms. 1t is
necessary for the fruit product
where nitrates take care of the
plant growth. 1t will never be o
strangling monopoly because there
are conceivable substitutes, like
stable manure and some of the
potash-containing products of our
Town packers. To take simple
parallel. there is monopoly of
anthracite which is, as the miners
are beginning to discover, not z
monopoly OF fuel.
4 Here is a case where Mr.. Hoover's
zeal did not prove helpful. He can
also wisely let the Brazilian cot
fee industry alone. Valorization.
Amounting to price fixing, is UNI
economic, but the credit of the state
of San Paulo is good enough for
Wall Street, and if the Brazilians
choose to encourage the growth of
coffee in Kenya and other British
Central African COLONIES they will,
in process of time, put their own
monopoly out of business. 1t may
be that Mr.. Hoover has an exag-
gerated idea of the value of govern
ment help. There is all the differ
ence in the world between the
starving inhabitants of Belgium in
war time and the self-reliant people
of the United States today.
Wall Street needs Washington ad-
vice but no Washington control on
the loans it makes to foreign debts.
n can coonerate halpfully with Mr.