The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1928-12-13
Suggestions for Concrete Efforts BY Congress Behalf Farm Relief
THE MINNESOTA PLAN

Believing that much can be gained by develop
ing concrete, workable and just proposals out OF
the general sentiment for national policies more
favorable to agriculture, and believing that now
is the time for such concentration OF thought,
rather than for mere assertion and protest
political maneuvering, the undersigned sug-
gest attention to the following program and we
hope for such general approval that it may be
held up to the country The Minnesota Plan.
We do not assume to include all that might be
practical and we welcome suggestions for amend
ment.
/. Development of Mississippi and st. Law
renee waterways within limits chat can be ap-
proved by DISTINGUISHED engineers and business
men. Delegation of power to the Interstate Com
merce Commission to permit northwest railroads
to compete with the Panama Canal for western
traffic.
2. Retention of the flexible feature of the
Fordney-McCumber Tariff act-a vital need to
prevent maladjustment between acts of congress
and rapidly changing world conditions.
g. Amendment of the tariff laws to provide
for the following:
(a) Revival of the potato starch industry
in Minnesota and in other potato growing
states "A higher tariff on flax and on any 9TH
er farm products that can be produced in our
country and which have foreign competition
in the home market.
(b) Such tariffs on vegetable oils as will
make corn oil and other vegetable oil produc-
ton here pay and such as will end the ad-
vantages these foreign vegetable oils have as
substitutes for animal and dairy fats.
(c) A better dairy schedule designed to put
other dairy products on a basis equivalent
to that of butter and to protect milk and it's BY
products such as cream and milk powders and
casein against foreign competition. T..
(d) There should be no competing meat and
poultry imports, and the various animal by
products should be so protected that, their
prices will help to sustain the farm prices for
the whole animal. In this connection we sug
gest consideration Of bonus on exports of
animal products to the end that the live
stock industry be stimulated, thereby becom-
ing factor in consuming surplus of grain
and in the process keeping fertility on Amer
lean farms instead of shipping it abroad as
would be the case if grain exports are stimu-
lated instead of live stock products. We sug-
gest, however, that in of grain surplus
emergency, provision for an export grain bonus
be considered but with suitable penalties for
continued overproduction.
(e) All cereals should bear such high rates
of protection that threat of imports cannot
interfere with prices set by domestic demand
and supply. 49,:
(f) There should be sugar policy, per-
haps one of gradual increase in protection
over series of years, with the end in view,
that the Continental United States shall be
practically self-sufficient in sugar. Public
security as well as farm welfare demands
such a policy.
(g) Executive actions on tariff rates should
be made acts of congress SO that in the future
the executive may be free to render further
aid under the flexible clause. E +-.~%s
= (h) Farm product protection should be. &C
companied by such compromising duties for.
products manufactured therefrom that no
such industry shall suffer in the home market.
4. Provision for two lines of research to be
projected at once under Congressional authority;
the one to discover means Of replacing imported
farm products with native products so far as
possible; the other to survey the possibilities of
drawing increased raw materials for our indus
tries from American farms. ~
S. Consideration of the problems arising from
the fact that the Philippines, Hawaii, Porto
or,IE rsca1 fniac oh iuoif
San Domingo, Nicaragua are and will continue
to be agricultural countries, tending to compete
unfairly with our continental farming Develop
ment Of our Inland Empire we suggest to be the
wiser policy. So.
~" 6. Consideration of immediate steps to shift