The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 10, 1921, Page 3

where. nents of the farmers there were not satis- . fied even with the statement that the farm- - .ers ought to have more credits. ‘the resolution was then passed. The sena- ‘tors who had" held themselves out as the ‘meekly agreed to every change that was _made. . o : i -a farmers’ resolution at all. ‘Finance corporation to ‘market American is, Minn,, under ‘the act of March 8, 18’}1‘), Bon Adatess e penitiances 5 108 Nonpaaiis ... Address e Nonp: Leader, Box. 2075, Minneapolis, Minn, - Lewns ! Tonpartisan Jeader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Two Weeks - - OLIVER 8. MORRIS, Editor. A MAGAZINE THAT' DARES TO PRINT THE TRUTH One year, in advance, 32,50; six months, $1.50. Clas- sified rates on classified page; other advertising rate on application, Member "Audit Bureau of Circulations, 8. C. Beckwith Bpecial Auen%y. advertising represen- tatives, New York, .Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City. VOL. 12, NO. 1. WO wéeks_ ago it appeared that congress »Iil_ight do ,something' worth while for the farmer. The spirit of “We must do : something for the farmer apd save the nation” was every- abroad, and (2) directing the federal reserve : What Congress board to extend additional credits to the Pledged and farm’]ejlv"s(.) Weeks‘ago vtfie Leader had a little op- What It Dld timism left. We confess now that we thought congress was, for the moment, abandoning pol- itics. But we were mistaken. The course of events has proved that congress is the same sort of an Institution that it has been for many 'years—promising much, fulfilling little. . - The first thing that happened to the resolution introduced to help the farmers was that it was amended so that the War Finance corporation ‘would be instructed, not to market farm products, but American products generally abroad.. This would mean, in the nor- mal course of events, that probably 90 per cent of its efforts would be given to mar- keting American manufactures and 10 per cent to marketing farm products. : Next the opponents of the resolution in resolution was passed by the senate. . It then went to the house. The oppo- This sec- tion of the resolution was amputated and “thick and thin” friends of the farmers The resolution as finally passed was not t made no pro- vision for credits for farmers. All it did was to call forithe re-creation of the War products abroad. The number of the reso- lution was the same as when it was-intro- duced; in every other way it was another resolution. It was a fair sample of the trickery of the brand of politicians.we now have in congress; promising-one thing, giv- ing quite another. _ OME of the apologists for con%ress will . probably say, “But this is not all that S congress is going to do for the farmer; it is going to put a high tariff on-agricultural products.” : & : Let us see if this is going to do any good. The first plan to help American agriculture, as outlined by the resolution re-creating ‘the- War Finance corporation, is to aid the marketing of American e products abroad. Why is it difficult to sell Ameri- Will Tariff can products abroad now? Because of the differ- Help or Hurt €0cein exghange. In Italy, for instance, it takes $5 p O ? to buy $1 in American money. -And why is foreign the _Farmer.. exchange out of line?' Simply because, during the : years of the war, our munition makers dragged so ' many billions of gold from European countries that the paper money issued by these countries, having little gold left to back it, depre- - . ciated in value. So long as we continue to sell more goods to Europe ‘than we buy, foreign exchange is going to continue out of line. It probably will get worse instead of better.. 34 ~+© Will'a high tariff on American farm products help the Ameri- can farmer? In the case of a few products it possibly will. Danish S ‘butter has been competing with ours. ‘As we explained some time -/ ago, this was made possible by the difference in exchange. One way. _ to remedy the situation would be to get exchange bac\k,to normal- A Rl O SRR S S - S PAGEm »- g % MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, JANUARY 10, 1921 The senate committee on agriculture had recommended a ‘ resolution with two provisions: (1) To re-create the War Finance - corporation, for the express purpose of marketing farm products ] DON’T BE THE GOAT! I “the senate got an amendment to the second ‘section. This was changed so that instead of directing the federal reserve board to ex- tend greater credits to farmers, it merely ‘expressed the opinion that farmers ought to ‘have better credit arrangements. Then the ing the farmer as a goat, may make the farmer mad. Well, it ought to—it ought to make him fighting mad so that he will join the League by the thousands and change conditions.” WHOLE NUMBER 263 Congress Again Proves False to Its Promises - again. Another way, the way that congress apparently is choosing, is to put another patch in the tariff wall. : UT in the main American farm products can not be helped by a protective tariff, because we export far more than we im- port. The price of our surplus, which we sell on the foreign market, is certainly not going to be helped by; a protective tariff. ~ Much has been made about imports of Canadian wheat this year. Official figures for the 10 months ended October 31, 1920, ; show that in that time we imported 14,249,121 3 . bushels, enough, possibly, to have some influence .I;aillm?l_;? lfie on prices. But during the same period the United ail of HIgh giotes exported to Canada 13,989,321 bushels. Tariff Kite Therefore the exports practically cancelled the imports. _ On the other hand, during the same 10 " months of 1919 we imported Some 8,200,000 more. bushels from Canada than we exported-to Canada. s No fuss was made about Canadian .wheat in 1919, although net imports were 10 times as great as in 1920. ‘Then why are Ca- nadian imports played up so this year? Why is congress proposing 3 tariffs to help American farmers, -when American farmers are exporters rather than importers? : _ " Simply because congress is getting ready to pass a new high tariff “protecting” American manufacturers against all Euro- pean- competition, and thereby enabling them to put up prices as high as they like. "This tariff is coming next spring. When it is introduced the politicians want to be able to go to the farmers and say, “We have al- ready helped you out with a tariff ; now it is ct)nly fa;ir that we should help the -manufac- urers.” : HIS brings us to the taxation ques- tion. Tariff duties are one form of taxation. They are taxes that are handed on to the consumer, sometimes dou- " 'bled or trebled. 5 Besides considering the tariff, congress is now proposing to fepeal excess profits : B . 1t;axes andl,lowelj income : ’ axes on large incomes. tC mslfiir&s%l’lans This will relieve big 0 ax. ‘business, and the con- Burden on Poor gymers ~— the farmer-. and. city worker — will be made the goats as‘usual.: They will have to make up the difference. They will do it in part by paying higher prices for every- thing covered by the new tariff. If present plans are carried out they may also pay an extra cent on every dollar’s worth of goods they purchase, or 10 cents a pound on tea, 2 cents a pound on coffee and sugar, in- % creased prices on tobacco, ete. There is still another-plan. This is to repeal the excess profits tax and the higher income taxes, but not to levy any new taxes on consumers. - This would be quite as bad as the other plan. It would leave the bulk of our war debt to be paid by consumers, but instead of paying off the debt in 25 years it would extend the time of pay- ment for 60 years. Not only the consumers of today but their chil- dren and grandchildren would spend their lives paying:-the war debt. Further, the United States has never gone 60 years without a major war. .The average time between wars has been 25 years; the greatest length of time 34 years. Extending payment for 60 years - would mean piling the debt of additional wars on top of our present , pictur- ‘heavy burden. : "This is' what congress is planning. Farmers and workers are equally threatened by the new program. They must work together if they are to prevent it from going. into effect. It certainly is no’ time to set one class against the other, as the officers of the Ameri- can Farm Bureau federation are doing by urging the passage of anti-strike and other anti-labor bills. Gl S . . The only way to get substantial and certain relief is for farm- ers and city workers to pursue the common end of getting grafters out of congress and putting honest men in their places.: