The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 10, 1919, Page 5

' Bad Methods Wreck Forelgn Markets Statistics Show Northwest Farmers’ Exports Declined Over Fifty Per Cent Between 1897-1901 and 1910-1914— Hope in Fundamental Changes BY A. B. GILBERT ARMERS of the Northwest have "been rapidly losing the forexgn market for their products in the last 20 years. Decline of foreign sales may have been offset somewhat by increase in. do- mestic consumption.. But this increase does not prevent loss abroad from being a real loss. Northwest farmers would have been more prosper- ous had they had the domestic increase and kept up in the foreign market at the same time. Before taking up probable causes of this foreign trade loss, let us look the actual facts in the face. The most important products which the Northwest farmer sends to the world are wheat, pork, beef and corn. When these products are selling well and crop conditions have been favorable this farmer is relatively prosperous. When they are down he is on the rocks. ‘They are the backbone of his m- come. Strange as it may seem to those who do not fol-. low the world situation closely, it is nevertheless a fact that during the last three years of rush to feed. Europe, we sent Europe less of these four Nopthwest products per year than we did normally in the years 1897 to 1901. Of the four products only wheat got above the quantity exported annu- ally from 1897 to 1901. Beef and beef cattle have not risen to half as much. Corn and cornmeal to less than a third of what we were exporting 20 years ago. Pork and pork products come close to meeting the old quantity. The accompanying chart shows these relative war-year amounts. It also shows how wheat, pork and corn went below the average for the four years 1897-1900 after 1903. decline. The four products recovered somewhat in 1906. The next year cattle and beef products joined the other three in a rapid downward course. In 1910 exports of not one amounted to half of what we were exporting annually from 1897 to 1900. From 1911 to 1914 wheat and potrk climbed up a little. But for the Northwest farmer these gains must have been more than counterbalanced by the swift decline of beef and corn exports. Beef ex- ports in 1914 were less than one-fifth those of the average year 1897 to 1900. Pork was three-fifths, corn one-twentieth and wheat a little more than three-fifths. So much for our relative losses in trade. They would not be serious if only small amounts as compared with domestic trade were exported in the years previous to 1900. But as a’mat- . ter of fact the exports were enormous —beyond imagination unless we find simple comparison. Here, for instance, are the figures for the average yearly exports of wheat for four .different five-year periods as given by the year book of the department of agriculture: Average-year Bushels 1892-1896 . . . 4 4 4 4 oo 170,628,652 1897-1901 . . o & o 0 o o . 197,427,246 1902-1906 . . . . . 0 o o oo 140,025,529 1907-1911 . o & v 0 o . . 116, 137,728 The loss between 1897-1900 and 1907-1911 of 81,289,518 bushels is con- siderably more than the average yield of North Dakota, the greatest wheat state of the Union: The average sent across in the years 1911, 1912 and 1913 was less than 79,000,000 bushels; so the loss just previous to the war was over 118,000,000 bushels, or more « than the combined yield of North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. SHIPMENT OF DRESSED BEEF ALSO FALLS The year book gives the figures for exports of-live cattle and beef prod- ucts as follows: a0 | ‘00 ‘O Average Live cat- Beef products, year , No. pounds 1892-1896 + o . 349,032 507,177,480 1897-1901 . . . 415,488 687,268,235 1902-1906- « « . o+ 508,103 622,843,280 1907-1911 ., « . . 258,867 « 448,024,017 1912 PRI 105,506 233,924,626 1913 ‘ee. e 24,714 170,208,320 ~ 1914 o s o o 18,876 151,212;009 The foregoing figures overthrow the somewhat = general impression ' that Wheat had a remarkable The war gave the farmers of the Northwest considerable increase in foreign trade. But the amount of food we exported in the last three years does not equal our normal business in the years 1897-1901. The story on this page gives the plain official facts of the case. These facts show how exports of the four principal products declined over 50 per cent between the years 1897-1901, and the years 1910- 1914. ~These plain figures constitute one of the most powerful arguments for the Nonpartisan league program. No Northwest farmer who is alive to his own welfare, can fail to grasp what they show and the need for fun- damental changes in our marketing. ~ while we tpractlcally stopped Sending live cattle to Europe in recent years, the packmg trust has made up for the loss by shipping beef products. In the average year 1897 to 1901 we sent abroad over 1,500,000,000 pounds of hog products. In the years 1910 to 1915 there was only one in which we passéd the billion mark; 1910 was a good deal less than half of the 1897-1901 record. And we did not’ make up for the hog losses by exporting more corn. Average corn and cornmeal exports frem 1897 to 1901 were 192,531,378 bushels. The average for 1907 to 1911 was 56,568,030 bushels. In 1914 the amount was only 10,725,819 bushels. - The loss be- tween 1914 and 1897 would just about cover the total corn products of Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. Many less important products like ‘cheese experienced a similar decline. How can we account for these great market losses? Did the competitors of the Northwest farmers in Australia, Argentina, South Africa, Russia and the importing countries of Europe be- come relatively efficient producers? They have not. Europe itself was efficient in this line in the decade 1890-1900 when we exported so much. Since then we have applied invention and science to agricul- MO’O‘%O&O?QOS This chart shows the relative exports of the four principal products of the farms of the Northwest for each year from 1900 to 1918. The basis for com- parison is the average yearly exports of these products during the four years 1897-1900. Here we see unmistakable evidence of great market losses against which the pollt‘lclans have not raised a hand for protection. The trusts, on the ' other hand, have gained rather than lost with the farmers because they ‘have been able to increase tl\eu' margms. - pends for bulk traffic. tural problems more rapidly than such countries as Russia and Australia and fully as rapidly as the other countries mentioned. The explanation undoubtedly lies in what stands between the consumers of Europe and the compet- ing producers in the different countries. We have been generally building up a top-heavy system of marketing which production can not stand. Be- tween the farmer of the Northwest and Europe we -have the following monopolies: 1. Railroads which force the longest haul to seaboard rather than the shortest. 2. Monopoly handling in ports from rail- roads to ship. 3. Monopoly of marketing and processing. 4. An ocean freight combine hostile to American products. Glance, for instance, at the map of Australia. You find a country entirely surrounded by water, with short rail lines running down to the principal ports. All of Australia’s crops are within a few hundred miles of water transportation. Or look at Argentlna and South Africa. Here again agricul- ture is close to the sea. Russia looks to be a long way off, but as a matter of fact most of her wheat lands are down near the Black sea and the'wheat travels much less than our wheat to get to the ship. Much of it travels by river and'canal. Here is one of nature’s handicaps. CHEAP TRANSPORTATION KILLED OFF IN U. 8. Instead of trying to overcome it, however, we have made our handicap worse. We have killed off river, lake and canal traffic on which Europe de- All southern Russia is a net- work of canals and rivers. Then where we do have to use railroads we almost never seek the most efficient route. Omaha is 1,062 miles from New Orleans and 1,400 from New York, but Omaha “grain goes to New York. Kansas City, Mo., is 879 miles from New Orleans and 1,357 from New York, but New Orleans normally gets little of the Kansas City business. At the same time empties have to be sent south to bring up products for Kansas City and Omaha. Bulk products from the Central West must go to New York by rail rather ‘than via the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence river or the Erie canal. Mountain states must take the long rail ; haul east to seaboard instead of the short haul west to the Pacific. We got we had it. Our railroads boast of a low cost per mile, but this amounts to nothing when rail hauls are from 50 to.100 per cent more than they need be. Rail- road financiers also concentrate busi- ness at a few Atlantic ports, notably New York, because they have well- located property there which brings them bxg revenue so long as the roads bring in the business. One firm at New York, the William Spencer & Son corporation, has a monopoly of trans- ferring freight from railroads to ships through contracts with all .the rail- roads. We must add to this a number of other excessive costs, such as congestion of an overcrowded port. Business declines because, ‘instead of charging all the traffic will bear, the monopolists habitually charge more. The detrimental . work of such monopolies as the packers and the milling combine is too well known to need much comment. They also take toll beyond what the traffic will bear —not so much in their profits, large as they are, ‘but in the wasteful con- centration which they have forced. The years 1890-1900 were years of competing ocean freights. Our bulk stuff got to Europe relatively as cheap as that of our competitors. = From 1901 to the present were years jof ocean freight monopoly in the hands of English financiers. Put alongside ' built the Panama canal and then for- - monopoly of wharf facilities and the - of this the fact that Enghsh capitalists are directly interested in five wheat- -producing countries—Australia, New e P R I R P A AR R P S S SHS AR