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Show Sheepman Gives Benson Advice i Clarence Lamoreaux. local sheep and wool producer, has appealed ap-pealed to Secretary of Agriculture Agricul-ture Ezra Taft Benson for a protective pro-tective tariff to save the western sheep producing industry. Mr. Lamoreaux voiced his opinion of the critical situation in the industry in-dustry together with his suggestion sugges-tion for a protective tariff, in the following letter mailed to Mr. Benson this week: Mr. Ezra T. Benson Secretary of Agriculture Dear Mr. Benson: 1 am writing you of the serious seri-ous condition of the sheep industry. indus-try. There is something I haven't been able to solve. We only produce pro-duce one-third of the wool we need, yet for 20 years or better the price of wool has been way below all other industry, also far below prices of labor and commodities. com-modities. You say that you are going to go slow with the problem of adjusting ad-justing prices. As I see it you may close the door after the horse is out. 1 know your problems are many and that your are getting plenty of complaints. 1 hope you don't think this a complaint, as our sheep business is in a critical criti-cal condition. Had it not been for the price of lambs we received re-ceived we would all have gone, out of business. Now that lambs have taken a slump I don't know what we will do. I am not in favor of a parity or any subsidized method, but I do think we should have a tariff inforced on foreign trade comparable com-parable to our cost of production produc-tion and standard of living, and !I also think it should apply immediately im-mediately to save our livestock industry. I see in your speech of February Febru-ary 28, that you preferred price support at a minimum wage guaranteed for farmers. I disagree disa-gree with any minimum wage or price support of any kind because be-cause you can't feed a horse, cow or sheep on a minimum and expect ex-pect to get anything out of it. It is just a waste of time and money. A farmer or livestock operator has to compete with industry for Its share of labor, so if they can't pay It, they will have to stop producing. As I see it the next famine will be caused by the high cost of producing. I also think quite a lot of trouble has been the yelling yell-ing of the high cost of living and nothing being said of the high cost of production. As I see it, we must have a fair tariff and now, in order to correct some of the evils. Sincerely, Mr. Clarence Lamoreaux |