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Show Urban Vs. Rural Voters pHE VOTERS OF THE TOWNS and cities, five of them to one on the farms, were aroused by the fact the government had used 100 million mil-lion dollars of their tax money in an effort to maintain a top price for the potatoes purchased by ihe town and city people. They orotested vigorously vig-orously to their senators and representatives rep-resentatives and demanded the practice be stopped by a repeal of the farm subsidy laws. Congress listens attentively to the larger number of votes. Those town and city voters saw only one side their side of the subsidy story, and only a portion of that. They nerd to be offered the other side, the farm side, if that demand for repeal Is to stop. They must be shown that other side from the viewpoint view-point of the people of the cities and towns, not from the purely selfish interest of the farmers. It must be shown to them convincingly con-vincingly and understandably, continuing over a considerable period. The individual farmer cannot do such a job, but it can be done by the farm organizations, if those organizations organi-zations wish to see farm subsidies continued. Government, through a bit of applied ap-plied pressure, forces a wage demand de-mand and old age pension for the steel workers on the steel companies. compa-nies. To meet the cost, the companies compa-nies increase the price of their product. pro-duct. It means an increase in the price of automobiles, trucks, and other commodities purchased by the farmers. The steel companies are in a position posi-tion to adjust their prices to production produc-tion costs. If they were not and were forced to produce steel at a loss, the steel mills would quickly shut down, and steel production would stop. That same condition applies to all manufacturing industry. indus-try. The farmers -too, cannot long carry the burden of production at a loss. When they quit, the people of the towns and cities will go to bed hungry. The individual farmer, unlike the steel company, is not in a position to fix the price of his product. It can be fixed only by supply and demand. Government Govern-ment regulates the price by regulating the supply. It either estimates the demand correctly, correct-ly, or buys up the surplus. If it limits production on the basis of an underestimated demand, the price is high, and some of us do not eat. When the limit on production pro-duction is on the basis of an overestimated demand an artificial arti-ficial scarcity to maintain a high price is created by buying up the over supply with the tas payer's dollars. In the case of potatoes the fault was not witb the farmer, as President Truman Tru-man indicated, but with the Washington bureaucrats who did a bad job of estimating, as they did in the case of the little pigs. Farmers, individually or collect ively, are not in a position to ascertain ascer-tain production needs, or to regulate regu-late production in accordance with such needs. The government has undertaken to do that for them, and to plan for whatever the food needs may be. That is done in Washington. It is unfair to blame the farmers for the mistakes and bad guesses of government, but that is what is being done. There are many people who believe be-lieve there are other and more practical ways of solving the supply sup-ply and demand problem than that of using the tax money to pay up the surpluses the farms produce. Can the farm organizations suggest and will they support such a plan? The present system will not continue con-tinue indefinitely because of those town and city votes. Those representing repre-senting the town and city voters at Washington will, in time, listen to that five votes as against one on the farm and vote subsidies out. In the meantime it would be well for the farm organizations to find a way of telling the farm side of the story to the urban population and what interest that population has in encouraging the farmer to continue to plant, cultivate and harvest the nation's food. Yes, the voters of the towns and cities, five of them to one on the farm, can lay that loss of 100 million mil-lion dollars of tax money to the bad guessing of Washington bureaucrats, bureau-crats, not to any avarice on the part of American farmers. There must be a way of providing the farmer with a cost of food production. produc-tion. English political parties seem to be more honest than those of this country. They say what they stand for. Labor says if they can have a majority in parliament, thoy will continue the process.; of socializing England; the conservatives promise prom-ise no more nationalization and. in so far as possible, to undo what has been done. Here the effort is to cover up all socialistic purposes, while ostensibly proposing to preserve pre-serve private enterprise. Neither party gives us a definite purpose against socialism. |