The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 31, 1919, Page 5

,;'rv: i BT _ been compelled to sell their grain on - market immediately, and can bor- | Effects of the North Dakota Legislation ~ Farmer Program Creating New State Services for the People Will Mean Great Savings for Producers™—Railroad and Tax Laws Also Contribute ORTH DAKOTA’S farmer legis- lators have adjourned their memorable session at Bismarck, having enacted into law a pro- gram of reforms so sweeping that they mark a new era in American history. \ In previous issues the Leader has told what these bills were. This is to tell something of the effect that they will have on North Dakota. In the first place take the industrial bills. North Dakota is now a state practically without indus- tries. Because the farmers’ grain is handled and milled in Minnesota, North Dakota has no large cities. Be- cause the farmers’ grain must pay freight charges from North Dakota to the: Twin Cities and the farmers’ mill feed must pay freight from the Twin Cities to North Dakota, livestock breeding has mnot been a profitable business and has not been developed as it should. Because the farmers have a low market, as soon as it is har- vested, they have been robbed of mil- lions of dollars in the aggregate each year. 3 The new industrial program provides a terminal elevator and flour mill system and the Bank of North Dakota. With this sys- tem in full operation farmers will be able to store their grain instead of having it forced on the Capital row needed money on their ware- house receipts at the Bank of North Dakota. It will mean that all of North Dakota’s grain crop will not be forced on the market at once, thus breaking it down. It will mean, also, that the farm- ers will save the freight on their grain to the Twin Cities, and the freight on their mill feed and flour from the Twin Cities back to North Dakota. SOME ESTIMATES OF SAVINGS ~ North Dakota raised last year 250,000,000 bushels of agricultural products, principally. grain. Doctor E. F. Ladd, president of the North Dakota Agricultural college, estimates that by rea- son of an average increased price of 5 cents a adopted. bushel, due to the grain grading and inspection law passed by the 1917 legislature, North Dakota farmers netted an additional $12,500,000 in 1918. The increased price that will be forced by the elevator and flour mill system in connection with the state bank, undoubtedly will be much greater. If a conservative estimate of an increased price of 10 cents a bushel is taken, North Dakota farmers stand to win $25,000,000 a year from this source alone. This is not the only saving that will be accom- plished by the Bank of North Dakota. North Da- kota farmers now have first mortgage loans on their farms aggregating $309,000,000, at an aver- age interest rate of 8.7 per cent. If the activities of the new bank, borrowing money on state bonds and lendmg it back to the farmers at cost, should succeed in reducing this average interest rate only 1 per cent, it would mean a savmg of $3,090,000 a year to the farmers. But probably the interest rate will be re- duced much more than 1 per cent. By redis- counting commercial paper the state bank will be able to extend the borrowing power of local banks that are members of the state system, and farmers will be able to get more Bank of North Dakota $2,000,000 Loans on Warehouse Receipts favorable terms on chattel mortgage Ioans. By reducing the rate of interest and adding to the general prosperity of the farmers, the new laws will check the growing tendency to- ward tenant farming. The ratio of tenant farm- ing has been growing in North Daketa, as in other states, until now two farmers out of every five are tenants. Most of the city workers rent, instead of owning their homes. To remedy these conditions the leg- islature enacted the home-building bill. This act will mean that not only will the tendency to greater farm tenancy be stopped, but a positive force will | INDUSTRIAL PLAN OF NORTH DAKOTA | North Dakota Industrial Commissioh Governor, Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor, and Attorney General. North Dakota Mill and Elevator Association $5,000,000 Capital ' _ People of North Daketa ' : In their new industrial legislation the North Dakota farmers were wise enough to follow the best busi- ness. practice in concentrating authority and responsibility. be set to work to make men who are tenants now, farm and home owners. In connection with the industrial program the railroad rate bill must be considered. At the pres- ent time railroad rates. are practically as high for a haul of 200 miles in North Dakota as they are for a haul of 300 miles in Minnesota. It is actually cheaper for a farmer to ship his grain to the Twin Cities than to points in North Dakota. The same discriminatory railroad rates have made it impos- sible for new industries to be ‘started in-North Da- kota and to compete with those in neighboring states. The new railroad rates will end this situation. - On the basis of present railroad shipments in North Dakota, the new rates will mean a net saving of $8,000,000 a year. But reduced rates will naturally build up more business for the railroads so that the actual savings are more likely to be $12,000,000 a year than $8,000,000. The new railroad rates give a preferential rate to lignite coal. The League program also provides for a series of investigations and demonstrations that will conclusively prove the value of lignite for use in the manufacture of briquets and gas. This will mean cheap fuel for any industries that may be started in the state.. It will mean employ- ment fof thousands of miners. : PAGE FIVE i s b D T AL T A T N Y T O X TG AR G 0 BV N P CTY 4 The above chart shows the organization Business has never used our political forms of loose and conflicting authority, and when the state goes into business it must follow business methods. Those business men who are criticizing this orgamzatlon for bemg businesslike, do so only because they want to see the state industries fail. In short, the industrial program in North Dakota will mean an actual saving of at least $35,000,000 a year to North Dakota farmers in cash. But it will mean much more than that. By encouraging the building up of industries and by making farm- ing more prosperous it will add to the value of both city and country property. It will mean converting a state that is now a state of grain raisers, many of them tenants, risking their entire fortune each year on the chances of drouth, hail, floods, rust and insects, into a state of land-owning farmers, with livestock instead of merely grain farms, and a state of prosperous cities filled with industrial workers. The workers in the new indus- tries that will come to North Da- kota will not be wage slaves, al- together at the mercy of employ- ers seeing nothing but the chances for profit. By passing the most enlightened labor laws in the United States the North Dakota legislature has taken care of that. The result will be that North Da- kota will have as high a class of workers in the cities as it now has on the farms. TAXES CHANGED TO AID INDUSTRY The program of tax legislation writ- ten into the North Dakota laws encourages industry instead of penalizing it. Farm 1mprove- ments are exempted from taxation " altogether. City homes have a $1,000 exemption, and are as- sessed at only 50 per cent for the portion above the exemption, while land, railroads.and business structures used for profit are as- sessed at 100 per cent. Exemptions of farm improve- ments and city homes ~will be made up by an incorfid tax that will bear heavily upon large in- comes, especially on un- earned incomes, and lightly, or not at all, on small incomes. Home Building Association These are the largest matters that are touch- ed upon by the North Da- kota: laws. But there are many other savings to the farmers. The new hail insurance law, though a matter of small importance as compared with the other measures on -the industrial pro- gram, will itself provide . a saving of at least $1,- 000,000 a year to the farmers. It will also make it possible for every farmer in the state to get hail insurance at a rea- sonable rate. Practically all the farmers will be insured, instead of only half or less-of them, and because of this fact the business of farming in the state will be on a surer, safer basis. It is a part of the program of making farming a legitimate business instead of a gamble. Amendments to the grain grading and in- spection laws, providing that grain buyers in future must pay for all valuable dockage at the market rate, will add at least $2,000,000 more each year to the total amount saved by the farmers’ legislature. Another important item in the North Dakota program is the provision giving the state grain department authority to fix the margin of profit that country elevators may make. A margin will be fixed that will allow a reasonable return on the investment—and no more. It is impossible to es- timate what the saving will be through these reg- ulations. Enemies of the League have made much of the fact that bond issues to the amount of $17,000,000 were authorized to initiate the new industrial pro- gram. THE LEGISLATORS SHOULD, HOW- EVER, BE CRITICIZED, IF AT ALL, FOR CON- {Continued on page 12)