Year: 1874

-. Better Prices.


From the Sacramento Record.


It was to be expected that very un.
usually strong effort would be made this
year to bear the prices Of all agricultur-
al products, and especially of wheat
The farmers had combined to better
their condition generally, and especially
to obtain fair price for what they
raised. They had become tired Of
working hard year in and year out for
other people, and had concluded to
work some for themselves.


This could only be done by reducing
the number of middlemen that have here
tofore stood between the consumer and the
producer on the one hand, and curtail-
ing the profits of those who should re-
main within reasonable and fair limits
on the other. The combination Of the
farmers for these purposes was very ex-
tensive and had become pretty formida-
BILE embracing all the states Of the
Union. The fact of this combination
was notorious and its objects were pub
lie. Could it be reasonably expected that
an opposing combination of those whose
interests and business were to be af-
fected by this combination of the pro.
ducers would not be formed? Was it
reasonable to expect that this latter
combination would not be in proportion
to the formidableness Of the one it had
to meet and the Importance Of the occa-
sion ?


The leading men Of the Changers,
and indeed all the Changers, expected
opposition from all classes of citizens
whose business it was proposed to dis
pense with, and they calculated on this
opposition. They expected the wheat
dealers and ship owners and charterers
would combine to hold on to the i'm
mense profits they had been in the habit
of securing for handling and freighting
the farmers wheat to market, and in
this they have not been disappointed.
This latter combination is not less ex-
tensive nor less determined in it's pur-
poses than that of the Changers. 1t
has its head in Liverpool, and it's rami-
6cations extend to every wheat-ship-
ping port in the world. Its main ob-
jects are to defeat the purposes and OBJ
jects Of the Grange movement, and thus
discourage the leaders of the latter Or
der, and by destroying the confidence
Of the masses Of the Changers in their
own organization and their own chosen
managers, to induce a withdrawal of
support and general decentralization.


To ACCOMPLISH these purposes, Of
course, des s2erate effort would have to
be made this year before any great ben
efts had been realized from the combi-
nation of the farmers. Freight must
be kept up and the price of wheat kept
down, and as Liverpool is the great
regulator Of the price Of wheat for the
world, the concentration of the effort
would naturally be made upon that
market. Such has been the case. The
immense capital and influence Of the
grain dealers Of the world combined in
the most perfect manner has been at
work.


The commercial press Of all the CON-
mercial ports Of the world have more or
less been brought under the influence
of this powerful combination, and have
been made in various ways to work for
the accomplishment Of its objects.
Some of them have openly espoused the
cause Of the middlemen and spectators,
and condemn the action of the Changers,
while others have worked in sly and
secret way to the same and general pur-
pose.


While some have editorially fattered
the Grangers and pretended to approve
Of their objects and purposes, in their
commercial articles, they have distorted
and misrepresented facts in the interest
of the middlemen. Others have attrib-
uted motives Of political character to
the Grangers which they are not guilty
of, and some have gone so far as to
claim that the great Grange movement
is mainly to put this or that political
party into power; thus endeavoring on
the one hand to use the Order in their
own interest: while at the same time
they were hoping to plant in it the
seeds Of dissension and weakness, and
to distract it from the main oh;oct of ;+e