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Show THE WHEAT PROBLEM. It was announced in the news dis-J dis-J patches the other day that President Roosevelt, in his efforts for farm re- lief, would seek a world agreement j for curtailing the production of wheat, j It is stated that the plan, broadly speaking, is ' to set fixed quotas of wheat for the great wheat producing countries, the United States, Canada,! Argentina, Russia and the Balkan countries. The quota so far as Russia is concerned would be merely an ; academic issue for the present, as ; wheat production has fallen off in that country and the soviet govern -j ment has little or none for export, j There can be no criticizing this j move on the part of the president. It : is undoubtedly true that we have a j world-wide over-production of wheat. I Like a great many of our other disturbing dis-turbing conditions, this dates back to the World War, when the wheat growing grow-ing nations, stimulated by a big crop propaganda, and big prices, greatly increased the output of wheat. Since the close of the war the world has been unable to get back to the old , basis of wheat production. I The statement from Washington ' adds that the United States itself will take the initiative and reduce its production pro-duction of wheat if the farm relief : legislation, asked by the president, is ; passed by congress. This is undoubt-: undoubt-: edly a step in the right direction and an important one, so far as the wheat farmers of America are concerned. . The tariff on wheat is generally ineffective in-effective in the United States because our farmers raise enough wheat for domestic requirements and considerably consider-ably more for export, so that the selling sell-ing price is determined in the world market. But if our farmers could, by some sound method, be induced to regulate their wheat so that production produc-tion in the United States would be on the basis of domestic consumption, there would be an entirely different story to tell. The protective tariff designed de-signed for what would immediately become effective and prices would go up so that the average farmer would make more than he did when he was raising a larger crop. In the case of wheat, as with other American products, we ought to get back to the question of holding the domestic market first in our estimation. estima-tion. After all, the people of the United Unit-ed States consume about ninety per cent of what is produced in our country coun-try and consideration of the home market should come first. This does j not mean that we should neglect the foreign trade opportunities which may come to us. It only signifies that we ought not gamble with or jeopardize a great home market in the expectation expecta-tion that we might get something farther far-ther away, something which might indeed not materialize at all. |