The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 29, 1917, Page 13

“Spuds” and the Cost of Living (Continued from page 8) traffic seems to stand it. In Duluth & firm is charging $20 per car. Another Duluth firm i3 charging 20 per cent of the value per carload, just to dis- tribute this to its city trade. In Kan- sas City the charges range from $10 to $15 per carload for some commission house charges; and from five per cent to 10 per cent for others while still other firms charge three cents per bushel. In Minneapolis the charge is flve cents per bushel, in St. Louis from $10 to $25 per car according to the firm handling; and from two and one-half per cent up to 20 per cent, while other firms charge $20 per carload. FIFTH OF VALUE FOR DISTRIBUTING CAR Think of this for a moment: 20 per cent of the value per car load, just for passing potatoes around, and this year they have been easier to pass around than ever before. It didn’t take 4 salesmanship—it only took potatoes. Take out that one-fifth charged for distribution, take out freight charges, take out the profit of the original buyer who got them from the grower (and maybe there were two or three other speculators intervening at a profit) and think what a burden the consumer must bear over and above what the grower gets. This Duluth firm admitted the price was a “little stiff”’ but thought the people had be- come S0 accustomed to stiff prices they wouldn’t mind an extra prod or two. But aside from the cost to the con- sumer, what do these facts mean? They mean that there is dire con- fusion in the potato handling trade; that commission men charge what they please and get away with it; that growers dump their potatoes onto a market as formless as a featherbed, while consumers pay day by day just what their local, detached dealers charge them. Some have drawn the conclusion that potato exchanges that ‘would fix values as the grain exchanges do would be a blessing to the public. They think uniform charges for hand- ling, and prices that would be more equalized, would result, and that this would prevent the wild ups and downs that tug the potato market here and there like a rag in a March wind. It is agreed that the present shapeless system makes speculators out of the growers, while an exchange system would build up a body of speculators, who would assume more of this guess work burden. But this body of speculators outside the growers is already built up. It is represented by the big potato commis- gion houses in every city, and their buyers in the growing belts. It is this speculation element that takes advan- tage of a good year to depress the growers into selling an excellent prod- uct cheap, often by misrepresenting the actual conditions, and often when the supply in response to the demand would, if not interfered with, yield a bigger return. Far better than an organized body of speculators making rules for their own benefit, to the neglect of the pro- ducers and consumers alike, would be provision for utilizing what the specu- lators now term the surplus product. As pointed out above, government fig- ures show there is no surplus. During the last 30 years the United States has imported roughly speaking 60,000,- 000 bushels of potatoes and export- ed 20,000,000, We are chronic import- ers of spuds. If in addition to the table demand for potatoes, there was & yearly demand for the small stuff, the frosted stuff, which in the northern states is always considerable owing to the late digging season, and whatever there might be in addition to table de- mangd, . the potato growing industry would become safe and stable. WHY NOT STATE PLANTS FOR POTATO ALCOHOL? This could be achieved by state- owned plants for the manufacture of alcohol from potatoes for power pur- poses. Europe is using this kind of power today to replace gasoline. Gaso- line is too high.in the United States, and its monopoly is in private hands, while the demand for power-driven machinery on the farms is growing. If potatoes could always be used to produce power alcohol, and if this new ' industry were taken out of the grip of speculation by the establishment of state-operated alcohol plants, (as the government now operates armor plants and is proposing to build a nitrogen plant), potatoes would cease to be the gport of the produce world, farmers- would get a steady profit, and con- sumers would not be exploited. The farmers of the Red River and the Kaw valleys would not refuse to plant pota- toes, as they are doing: this spring. They < would rather increase their plantings and the whole country would be assured a steady supply. 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