The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1928-12-26

Retention Of the flexible fea-
ture of the Fordney- McCumber
Tariff act-a vital need to pre-
vent maladjustment between
acts of congress and rapidly
changing world conditions.
This suggestion will mean much
in dollars and cents to agriculture
We ask its retention because an eff
fort is being made to wipe out the
feature in the present tariff law
The executive has the power under
this provision of the law to increase
a tariff schedule up to so percent
upon the advice of the Tariff Com
mission. Powerful interests, not
considering its effect on agriculture,
are demanding its elimination from
the law. Any plan Of farm relief
having in view general agricultural
policy for the future must demand,
we believe, the retention of this tar
Tiff feature.
H. n. Owen, editor of Farmstead,
Stock & Home, has made a study of
the benefits to northwest farming
that have accrued in dollars and
cents during just the time President
Coolidge has made use of it in boost
ing the tariff on farm products as
changed conditions have shown to
him that the schedules of the law
were too low to protect the farm pro-
ducts properly:
Gain, butter prices ,000,0 900
Gain, wheat prices-------$46,0 00, 900
No congress can forecast what
conditions are going to be and enact
duties which will nicely take these
conditions into account. There
must be a safety valve. The oppo-
sition to the flexible feature comes
from free traders and from corpora
ton baiters who are ignorant of bas-
ic conditions. Unless tariff rates
can be made to respond quickly, at
times our farmers will be at the mer-
cy of foreign production conditions,
ocean freight rates, money exchange
rates, and dumping devices of other
governments. A practical way to
help farming is to give the President
the power to protect agriculture from
sudden and unexpected competition
/ from foreign countries and not force
agriculture to wait the slow moving
congress, which even after it gets
started usually takes months and
months to change tariff law.
Amendment of the tariff laws
to provide for revival of the po-
tato starch industry in Mime
sofa and in other potato growing
states. A higher tariff on flax
and on any other farm products
that can be produced in our
country and which have foreign
competition in the home market.
The present tariff on potato starch
is only LIS cents with the result
that heavy imports from Germany
have closed a large number of small
starch factories scattered over our
state. Such factories provide much
needed market for Gull potatoes and
this in turn encourages more careful
grading and better prices for the
grades sold. A protective tariff on
starch would Immediately help the
potato farmer.
3 ONolOSS dISO nave IdI
err demand in our other chemical in
dustries. Germany has made great
progress in the use of the potato as
raw material. Potatoes yield more
carbohydrates to the acre than any
other crop. Why should we use
them only on the table? Proper tar
ifs, adjusted to keep out imports
the raw material for which can be
supplied from potatoes, would open a
new market for potatoes which in
I practically all years would take the
surplus off the market and give the
farmer good price for his crop. We
suggest the wisdom of encouraging
/ industries, through tariffs or other.
wise, that can use potatoes as raw
material. A direct tariff on potatoes
will in most years be of little value
because of the unusual character OF
potatoes as a crop, but a tariff to