Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1932-12-01

producers too numerous to be able
bv any voluntary arrangement among
themselves 10 control production or the
price. This particular industry is not
sufficiently responsive to the law of
supply and demand to accomplish this
unaided. II has to have a measure of
assistance from the federal govern
ment. Numerous plans to this end have
been put forth The leaders of farmer
organizations and economists are them
selves not in accord as to the best plan
to be pursued. Both political parties
have promised aid to agriculture
neither have proposed any definite
plan that will adequately protect our
farmers against internal and world
competition The Agricultural Market
ing Act enacted to promote farmer
owned selling organizations is a pro-
gressive and necessary step but its
weakness lies in its inability to create
marketing organization sufficiently
large to control the market and also
in its inability to influence the amount
of acreage. Some think the problem
is too great for human ingenuity to
solve. We do not subscribe to the
doctrine of despair" in this particular.
| II can be solved if the situation is thor
ouphlv understood and the facts hon.
estly faced.
To understand this it is helpful to
consider the two conflicting economic
systems in existence today First: The
"Liassez Fare or competitive system
in existence theoretically in all coun-
tries except Russia, and second. The
non-competitive communistic or Rus
sian system. Under the Russian system
there is no indidual ownership. The
state owns everything-the state is the
producer and distributor and retailer
of everything that is produced, and
that the individual uses. All industry is
controlled by the state.
The opposite of this system IS the
"Liassez Faire" or competitive system
theoretically existing in all other
countries. The theory Of this system,
under which our civilization has de-
veloped. is that there should be no
interference with industry by the state,
That the interest of the Individual and
! the state is best served by each indi-
vidual in competition with every other
!, individual working out his own eco
nomic destiny in his own way
! Before we reached the machine age
the system worked to the best advan-
tape OF mankind, but as life became
more complicated it became necessary
to modify the system. Perhaps the first
great modification was in the passage
of Child Labor laws, which removed
competition in that field and substi-
tuted government control. Then the
laborine man under the compulsion Of
| no work no food, in competition for
Jobs. was compelled to take what was
bare subsistence, until labor organ
lied in labor unions which again in
that field destroyed competition and
substituted system OF control.
Then we have trust and combinations
! in restraint of trade which are able %
control the price-gasoline for instance
where competition is eliminated and
control within the industry takes its
i place. Then again we have state con-
troll: for instance, our bus lines an.
railroads and public utilities.
The result is that the system nc
longer operates freely as a COMPETE
tive system but is partly competitive
system and partly a control system
and here is where the wheat grower
gets the worst of it He buys in con-
trolled market-either by governmental
agency OF within the industry itself
and he sells in competitive market
The result is maladjustment-economit
strain and stress-one large part Of
our population not getting its proper
tomato share of the result Of its labor
and the problem is not to 60 back tc
the unrestrained competitive system
that is impossible--but to extend the
control by governmental agencies s.
that the farmer like the industrialis
will sell in a controlled market Thu
problem is not to destroy individual
initiative, industrial liberty or compel
tive effort as in Russia or as is pro
posed in communism, but to inject init
the competitive system as much con.
troll in one form or another as vii
eoualize the component parts OF oul
economic system, and whereas in thu
case of agriculture, the industry can
not exercise control by organization
within itself. it is for the federal gov.
eminent here as in other industries, o.
It's intervention to restore parity II
the economic life Of the nation. What.
ever plan is adopted, experience bon
at home and abroad in attempts t
control the price Of agricultural COM
modities has shown that the system
must be largely automatic and tina
it must discourage rather than encour-
age extension of acreage.