The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 26, 1917, Page 5

tions on No. 1 Northern for the first week in December (1915) and found the mills were paying $1.029 per bushel for it, and he assumed that was a fair price. He found in the same way they were paying 98 5-10 per bushel for No. 2, but that figuring No. 2 at its test weight per bushel of one pound less than No. 1, and taking into account the fact that the mills were making a profit of 34.6 per cent on every bushel of No. 2 Northern they handled, he found that the mills actually ought to be paying the farmers $1.007 instead of 98 5-10 cents, that they were making 2 cents and 2 mills more per bushel than they were entitled to. Figuring No. 3 at its test weight per bushel, 54 pounds, and taking into account that the millers were making a profit of 40 per cent on that grade, he found they should be paying the farmers for the” raw wheat 96 6-10 cents per bushel in- stead~of 94 cents, a spread of 2 cents and 6 mills. In all but No. 1 Hard and rejected, he found that when the test weight per Hawaiian Public Market bushel was taken into consideration, the wheat was worth more than was being paid for it according to the reg- ular quotations., In these two the reg- ular quotations were slightly above what the test weight justified. But when it came to figuring the price on products made from the wheat, he found that the spread be- tween the regular quotations and what it ought to be was far worse. Accord- ing to mill products No. 2 was worth $1.015 instead of 98.5 cents; No. 3 was worth $1 instead of 94 cents; No. 4 was worth 99 cents instead of 90 cents; and rejected was worth 97 cents instead of 86. 2 Here then the millers were making 3 cents more than they were entitled to on No. 2, 6 cents more on No. 3, 9 cents more on No. 4 and 11 cents more on re- jected. No. 1 Northern was the only~ grade which was being paid for accord- Ing to what it was worth in products, the averages showing it was bringing 2 mills per bushel more than its prod- ucts were worth. Thomas Sanderson, miller at the North Dakota Agricultural college, says that the normal wheat crop of 1915 shows the same unjustifiable discriminations against “lower” grades, as the rust- stricken crop of last year—and all the nine years the college has been studying wheat problems. Taking the regular quotations for No. 1 Hard and rejected, it was found that there was a spread of-17 cents per bushel between them, while the actual spread in value gauged by what the different grades of wheat would pro- duce, was only 8 cents, INJURY ON PRODUCERS, MR. SANDERSON SAYS. ‘When confronted with such facts as these, the millers and their friends have always taken refuge in the statement that these differences of course do oc- cur,.but that the remedy does not lie in paying the farmers more for the lower grades, but in paying them less for the higher grades. They say they have been paying too much for “good” wheat'and that is why they are entitled to a little velvet on the “bad” wheat. Mr. Sand-rson takes this argument into account also, saying:* “If the trade is satisfied with the price paid for the so-called high grade wheat, and the profits from milling are remunerative, then it would appear that the injury falls on the producer. If, on the other hand, the price paid for the so-called lower grades of wheat is just, then the injury falls on the miller; and more especially on the lo- cal mills.” Of course, not even the big millers claim the profits from milling are not remunerative. There is no place where the big mills do not come out on top of the farmers and the little mills. Mr. Sanderson’s booklet shows that the big mills take all the wheat that comes to them and grind it into flour and by- products, that they are making these profits under a system of grading that pretends to rank as lowest the grades of wheat out of which they wake the biggest profits. “Summing up this whole matter as to the trouble resulting from the sale of wheat, it may be safely charged to the system used in grading,” says Mr. San- derson. “The remedy for this injustice, if attained, must come by a proper education of the grain trade generally to the facts shown by this data.” NS Owned and Paid for by Territory, it Has Restored Agriculture for Producer and Consumer HEN Captain Cook discovered the Hawaiian or Sandwich is- lands at the close of the American Revolution he esti- mated there were 400,000 na- tives on the archipelago engaged in ° agriculture. Some have held his esti- mates far too high, but wheatever the number of the population, Capt. Cook found the people prosperous and rais- ing g wide variety of semi-tropical “food plants. They had a market for all they raised and they were indus- trious above the average of the related races in the Pacific. Their industries were so well established that when the gold rush to California took place, the “forty-niners” bought potatoes, wheat, beans and other staples that were rais- ed in the Hawaiian islands and ship- ped to California by sailing vessels. But when the United~States took over the islands just 120 years after Captain Cook's discovery, the native agriculture had run out, and even the industrious and intelligent Portu- guese, the economical Chinese, and the Europeans and Americans -who had flocked to the islands in great num- bers, were unable to sell the splendid products that it was known the islands would produce. Agriculture, except sugar culture, and to a certain extent rice and .coffee culture, had vanished. The things the Hawaiian people ate came from Texas, Bermuda, China, and California, and even the interior towns of the islands could not be supplied witxh products grown in their own vicinity. BETTER MARKETS SAVED HAWAIIAN FARMS This condition had been ~brought. about through market exploitation by the produce handlers of Honolulu. Just as in every big city in the United States, the commission men of Hawaii, Americans and Europeans, had been pressing down harder and harder on the ,producers until the latter had quit farming in despair and had turned their whole attention to sugar culture, with insignificant exceptions. And the thing that saved Hawaii was not “better farming” (although general agriculture had fallen to:'such a low ebb that the farmers did have to be instructed again in the art they had forgotten); but better markets. And Lecause better markets could not be established under the system that pre- vailed, the Hawaiian government es- tablished a government owned and . controlled market, and during its seven years of operation it has again put Hawaiian products on every hotel table in the islands and is sending the finest of her products to the American continent again as it did in the gold rush days. A good analysis of the situation has been given by E. V. Wilcox of the fed- seral “state relations service,” the man who was chairman of the first market investigation in the islands, and who established the publicly owned and managed market that finally pulled Hawaii out of the hole. Mr. Wilcox (after enumerating some other diffi- culties) says: MIDDLEMEN CONTROL CESTROYED PRODUCTION. “To this ‘reason should be added the traditional and well grounded suspicion that in the event of mak- ing a shipment of fruit or vege- tables to Honolulu, the farmer might not receive a remittance Pineapples growing in the Hawaiian islands. “These pineapple fields were rescued from the clutches of the canneries that were trying to get the fruit for less than it cost to produce, by the establishment of a territorially owned and managed market. Packing pineapples in the Hawaiian islands into government labkeled boxes. “Territorial Market Division, Honolulu, Hawaii” is the label, showing the gov- ernment advertises its public market. large enough to pay the freight.” Again: “—' and charges of commission men and other middlemen amount- ed to so much in the aggregate that little or no profit was received - by the producer, even when his produce reached Honolulu at a time of unglutted market.” Again, he says: % “It required patience and careful managing to establish in the minds of local farmers any confidence in the possibility of marketing farm produce in Honolulu with a profit to the producer.” There had been feeble efforts to build up a sort of agriculture after the sugar industry had usurped the field and put the original farmers out of business. But these efforts at “better farming” were not for the purpose of again re- viving general agriculture for the gen- eral prosperity it would mean .to the islands, but \for the purpose of tying the farmers down to their land so they would be on hand to harvest the sugar cane crops. Sugar cane was immensely profitable to the sugar trust. In Hawaii it was no uncommon thing to produce 40 tons of cane to an acre, net- ting 10 tons of sugar. The business grew into many millions of dollars a year, and a rec.procity treaty between i “the islands'and the United States be- fore American annexation, let the sugar into the United States free' of duty, and further fattened the pockets of the plantation owners. By establishing small homesteads, usually of about six acres, the sugar men procured a permanent labor sup- ply, but the diversified agriculture, which was presumably the reason for establishing these homesteads, did not result. The farmers planted enough truck for their own use, but nothing for the markets that would not pay them a profit. What these farmers PAGE FIVE did was to plant their own small areas to sugar cane also and sell it to the trust, and the country continued to drift in the direction of one crop. GOVERNMENT OWNED MARKET IS ESTABLISHED Iven the few producers who con- tinued to struggle with the uncertain- ties of the Honolulu market found the inter-island steamer rates so high they could make but small profit. Then in 1909 the territorial government awoke to the fact that the rich agricultural possibilities of Hawaii were - being "choked to death, and the legislature ordered an investigation. At first only a temporary arrangement with the territorial . immigration department could be made, and this went along until 1913, when the legislature appro- priated a small sum for the furthering of production and marketing of Hawai- ~ian farm products. This department was established un- der the supervision of the experiment station, and it began business with only enough money to- hire .the necessary manager .and help, with no operating capital and no building. There was so little produce surviving the intolerable marketing conditions that during the first four months the territorial market did not do $100 worth of business. It was found that there was no market information that would help the producers reach an unsupplied market, or avoid one that was glutted. But even worse than this, Mr. Wilcox pointed out, was the fact that when produce reached a market that was not glutted, the producer could not be assured of a remunerative price. The freight rates were high and the com- mission rates for handling were ‘also high while the prices paid to producers were low. It was found for instance in regard (Continued on page 17) e e