Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1936-03-04
BUS|NESS-FARMER
ALLIANCE IS URGED
s'Efficient" IndustriaIists
Held in Favor of More
+ Trade to Aid Grower.

articles discussing the implications
of Secretary of State HulPs cam
noion to restore Americas 10000
600 900 foreign trade through me
1epsling OF trade barriers ana
ARRANGEMENT OF series OF recip-
,ocal international agreements.
BY BLAIR MOODY.
It's about time, in the interest OF
the Nations prosperity in general
and Its consumers in particular, to
hiring about an economic and political
working alliance between efficient IN
dustry" and agriculture.
The object of this alliance would
be to restore real competition In
business and bring about a lower
urice economy, knocking out the false
props" that cut the purchasing power
of the dollar, limit buying, and there
fore production and jobs.
This program not only would strike
at domestic monopolistic price COM
binations, but particularly would seek
to broaden the market for American
goods by a discriminating lowering
of world tariff barriers, which would
create more employment, wider dis
tribution of purchasing power, and
thus stimulated domestic market.
Ball Started Rolling.
Groups of industrialists who man
ufacture efficiently enough to compete
In world markets. and men like Sec
rotary of Agriculture Wallace, who
see clearly the long-pull interest Of
the farmer, have started the ball
rolling.
The focal point of their efforts is
the Department of State, where Sec
rotary Hull is slowly chopping away
at trade barriers, weaving his net
work of reciprocal treaties by which
he hopes to remend the ravages OF
war" that slashed world trade
from Oo0,oOO,OoO to $2l 100000,
600 In three years.
One of the best informed advo-
Gates of an alliance of farmers and
efficient industry is Edgar w. Smith,
vice president of the General Motors
Export Corp. Mr.. Smith points out
that industry cannot have an adequate
domestic market unless farmers can
buy, and that farmers cannot buy I'M
less they can get enough for their
crops to bring factory-made goods
within reach of their income.
The farmer, Mr.. Smith asserts, has
three alternatives: He can raise all
he can and sell it; he can raise all
he can and fail to sell it; or not
raise it.
When he raised all he could and
couldn't sell 1t the bottom fell out OF
purchasing power of the Middle
United States" Smith said.
Fears Stop gap Policy.
Current stop-gap attempts to bal
snce industrial and farm prices by
having him not raise it worked tenn
porarily. But already foreign markets
are affected and, if the policy were
carried forward indefinitely, they
would be ruined.
Therefore, frankly, am even more
interested in seeing an increase in
Americas farm exports than I am in
automotive exports. The effect on our
domestic market Is all-important The
stake of the automotive industry and
all other efficient, self-reliant indus
tries goes far deeper than the sale
of their own products-it strikes to
the vital dependence of our entire
economy on an abundant tWo-Way
fow of foreign trade.
The greatest improvement in our
business in the last two and half
years has come in the agricultural
areas of this country That improve
<nert came because the farmer is get
ting prices for the things he produced
high enough to let him begin buying
motor cars and other consumers
goods, on which the prices have not
changed.
But from now on, if he wants to
increase his income land buy more
industrial products, the farmer must
increase his production. And he dares
do that only if he can sell abroad.
II he is not assured of a market he
cannot be blamed for restricting pro-
duction, since industry relentlessly
restricts its own output when the
demand for its products falls off.
Doctrine of Plenty Urged.
But it would be better economies,
and far better for all of us in dollars
and cents. if the farmer raised all he
could and sold the surplus beyond
domestic needs in the markets of the
world that require this surplus so
urgently.
Now mark this: He can do this,
In the last analysis, only if his for
eign customers can find the means
of paying for the goods they buy.
They can find this means only if i'm
ports of foreign goods into the United
States are greatly increased, and such
an increase can occur only if tariffs
are lowered.
1T will be said that if tariffs are
lowered and imports increased, con-
siderable readjustment in our inter-
nal economy would have to be ex-
pected.
Il am ready to agree this would be
partly true, but great many of the
inefficient industries, ostensibly af-
fected, would actually benefit by the
ouickened economic life which would
ensue. They would, in consequence,
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