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Show help home prouueers will be a rate of duty equivalent to (10 cents per unit of potassium oxide that can be produced pro-duced from such potassium salts.' "Chairman Forunoy, therefore, seems in a fair way, it' we have the basis for it, to give us a permanent potash industry.'' OUTLOOK FOR POTASH iriSTRHMI Armour &: Co. Said to Have Reopened Utah Fertilizer Plant for Operation. Conditions Indicate Potash Stocks Can Be Moved at Profitable Price. News which indicates that the American potash industry will soon be able to make definite plans for future operations is contained in the following follow-ing communication from the office of the executive secretary of the United States Potash Producers' association at Washington, D. C-: "With the reconvening of congress, efforts are being made to bring the facts of the potash situation to the attention of individual congressmen, and to enlist support for the bill on the floor when it comes up for action. The ways and means committee of the house will hold a meeting this week, at which time it is hoped decision will be reached on reporting the bill. American Potash Needed. "In the meantime, there are indications indica-tions that fertilizer manufacturers are inclined to look to American sources for potash this year. Wc are informed that the Armour Fertilizer works, whose president, Mr. MacDowell, has beeu in Kuropc for several months, have reopened the Mineral Products corporation corpora-tion plant in Utah, which they recently acquired, and which has been shut down since early in the year. This would indicate that they do not expect potash from abroad in quantity sufficient suf-ficient for their needs this year. Fertilizer Fer-tilizer manufacturers are using the quoted price of American potash in determining their fall prices on mixed fertilizers. "Onlv a few thousand tons of Alsatian Alsa-tian salts appear to be available for export, and very little of that has as vet been received. Attorney General Palmer has stated that our trading with the enemy act will remain in force until after the ratification of the treaty of peace by the United States senate. This wall shut out German potash until that time. This statement by the attorney at-torney general was not in the form of an official decision, and it is unlikely that any heavy shipments of German potash can arrivo iu time for this fall's business. "One importing house which ' has contracted for a few thousand tons of Alsatian material is offering to the trade this week a combination of American Amer-ican and Alsatian potash at a combined price of $1.80 a unit. This price is apparently based on a combination of two parts Alsatian at from $1.50 to $1.70 per unit, and one part American at about $2.50 a unit. "It is .believed that American stocks of potash can be moved at fair prices within the next month or so. as fertilizer fer-tilizer manufacturers will soon be forced to buy to meet their fall business." busi-ness." Advisability of Protection. Protection for the growing industry is advocated in the following . article taken from the New York Sun: "When the German potash supply was cut off from the United States, and when nobody could foretell how long it would be before importations of this essential product could be resumed, American enterprise and capital set out to find and produce in our own country enough potash to take care of the needs of our farmers and others. Millions of dollars had gone into this new industry, indus-try, and millions more were going into it when hostilities ended. Came thereupon there-upon the double question: Should the United States government give this new industry a chance to work out its salvation, and should the United States government thereby take out some insurance, in-surance, that this, the greatest agricultural agri-cultural nation on earth, might never again be caught in the predicament where its farms could be deprived of &n article essential to bountiful har-vests, har-vests, for ourselves and others? "In behalf of the new potash in-dustrj-, aud of similar industries set up during the war. Chairman Fordney of the committee on ways and means has introduced legislation which pives promise of a solution of this problem. The bill in behalf of potash, for example, ex-ample, would not keep out the foreign product. It would not even compel the foreign product to pay high import duties at a time when our agricultural soil, more or less starved for five years, urgently needs these salts. The bill would license persons, firms and corporations cor-porations to import potash under the provision that for every ton of foreign product brought in they would buy here at home a proportion of domestic potash. Execution of Law Simple. "The fixing of this proportion appears ap-pears to be simple. The secretary of the interior, who would issue the licenses, is made responsible for determining deter-mining the total potash requirements of the United States and the total potash production of the United States. The difference is the amount which could be imported by individuals or firms taking tak-ing a pro rata share of the American pro'duet. For example, if it is found bv the department of the interior that the American production of potash for a given interval the bill names six months' periods for five years is or will be only one-fifth of the requirements require-ments of the country, then a potash importer may bring in four tons of foreign product for every one that he buys of domestic product. "The Fordney bill also provides against an excessive domestic price for the consumer, who must take sonic of the home article in order to get the foreign article. For the first two years after the passage of the act "no price for domestic potassium salts in excess of $2.50 per unit, of potassium oxide should be considered fair and reasonable reason-able within the meaning of this act, and for the succeeding twelve months such fair and reasonable price shall not exceed $2 per unit, and for the remainder re-mainder of the time shall not exceed $1.50 per unit.'' ' ' This ' fair and reasonable price, ' it may be stated, is far below the prices which have obtained here during dur-ing the potash famine period of the war. At the end of the five years when, presumably, if the potash industry indus-try is to live, it will be on its feet, importers will no longer be compelled to take any of the American product if they don't want it. The only restriction restric-tion which will remain on importers or |
