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Show oo FOUNDATION OF INDUSTRY. J. It. Howard, temporary president of the National Farm Bureau federation, federa-tion, at a meeting of farmers In Chicago Chi-cago yesterday said: "People are coming to realize that farming is the foundation, of all industry. indus-try. They must come to see that tho enormous inflation of other industries at the expense df the farmer will not pay In the long run. "Houses In rural districts are empty while in the cities profiteers can de-' mand any price they want for lodging. lodg-ing. This cannot last forever." Those few words present a rather Jclcar-cut picture of tho situation. The declining value of European currencies as compared with United States money has had a strong tendency ten-dency to cut down tho exportation of certain products from the United States, principally meat and grain. iWho has been the principal sufferer? !The farmer. j Reports of the big packers disclose that their profits were below normal 'for the last year and the packers say this shows that when the drop in 'livestock came they decreased prices 'to the wholesaler of meat? If wholesale prices of meat have do 'creased, there seems to bo little indication indi-cation of such decrease in quoted retail re-tail prices. Wage earners have not noted a decrease in the cost of living and the demands for higher wages to meet living costs continue. And as wages increase In the , cities, more farm workers leave the farms for th, higher wages paid in the city. So the farmer gets hit In two ways. He, is getting 'paid less for his livestock live-stock than formerly, yet the decreaso has not benefited the consumer, who demands still higher -wages. And these higher wages take away the farmers' far-mers' help. The city workers cannot be benefited, bene-fited, either, by the condition. If help Is scarce on the farms, the farmer must pay more for farm labor. This brings up the cost of the products pro-ducts the farmer sells. The wage earner earn-er in the city must pay more. ' And then he asks for more wages. It looks like an almost continuous performance of a dog chasing his tail oo |