OCR Text |
Show MAKE YOUR OWN FIGURES There is abundant evidence that the American farmers are coming) to see that their troubles, like the troubles of the most of us, are economic, due to natural laws and not legislation. One might well go a step farther and assert that most of the farmers have seen this from the first. Word comes from the southwest that a meeting of farmers recently passed a resolution to the effect that it d;dn t want to hear any more political speeches on the plight of agriculture. Evidently this organization believes that something else is needed than more or less visionary plans to lift the farmer by his own bootstraps. boot-straps. All sorts of theories have been propounded as cures for the ills of the farmer and all sorts of figures have bqen produced to show , what is the matter with him. Most of these have been erroneous, as was a recent arithmlical exhibit tending to show how much less the farmers' dollar will buy than the dollar of the fellow in town a set of figures which the secretary of agriculture branded as an absurdity. In commenting on the situation of the farmer and the tendency of tariff reformers and others to quote their own statistics to suit their own purposes, Mr. Jardine. wisely said: "Since 1921 agriculture has been going through a slow but steady process of recovery. The index of the purchasing power of farm products has risen by an average of five points per year from its low point of 69 in 1921. It is true that cotton has slumped in price this fall, but it is equally true that other products of regional importance enjoy ai favorable price position. In August, the latest month fdr which our figures are complete, such leading products as hogs, potatoes, butter and wool had a -unit purchasing power even above the prewar parity of exchange. "Of course, no informed man will argue from this that the difficulties of farmers are ended nor that there are not yet real agricultural ag-ricultural problems to be solved. On the other hand, no real progress pro-gress can be made toward restoring full agricultural prosperity if such important matters as tariff protection or other issues of national nation-al policy are to be settled on the basis of incorrect and misleading statistical evidence." |