we find the very life of their people is thus dependent upon maintaining open free access to overseas markets. From this necessity have grown the great naval armaments of the world, and the burden they imply on all sections of the population. Such nations, of necessity, have engaged in fierce competition for markets for their industrial products. Thus they built up the background of world conflicts. The titanic struggles that have resulted have endangered the very lives of their people by starvation. Their war tactics have, in large degree, been directed to strangle food supplies. One other result of this development is the terrible congestion of populations in manufacturing areas with all the social and human difficulties that this implies.
There is a jeopardy in industrial over-development which has received too little attention because the world has only experienced it during the past eighteen months. In times of industrial depression, or great increase in the cost of living, whether brought about by war or by the ebb and flow of world prosperity, these populations, oppressed with misery, turn to political remedies for matters that are beyond human control. They naturally resent the lowering of their standards of living, and they inevitably resort to industrial strife, to
strikes and disorder. Theirs is the breeding ground of radicalism—for all such phenomena belong to the towns and not to the country.
By and large, our industries are now in a high state of prosperity. More favorable hours, more favorable wages, are today offered in industry than in agriculture. The industries are drawing the workers from our farms. If this balance in relative returns is to continue, we face a gradual decrease in our agricultural productivity. If we should develop our industrial side during the next five years as rapidly as we have during the past five years, we shall by that time be faced with the necessity to import foodstuffs to supplement our own food supplies. Some economists will argue, of course, that if we can manufacture goods cheaper than the rest of the world and exchange them for foodstuffs abroad, we should do so. But such arguments again ignore certain fundamental social and broad political questions. These dangers have become more emphasized by experience of the war. From dependence on overseas supplies for food, we will, by the very concern that will grow in public mind as to the safety of these supplies, soon find ourselves discussing the question of dominating the seas. Our international relations will have become infinitely more complex and more difficult.
Unless the League of Nations serves its ideal, we will need to burden ourselves with more taxation, to maintain great naval and military forces. But of far more importance than this is that social stability of our country, the development of our national life, rests in the spirit of our farms and surrounds our villages. These are the sources that have always supplied our country with its true Americanism, its new and fresh minds, its physical and its moral strength. Industry's real market is with the farmer by the constant increase of his standard of living. We want our exports to grow in exchange for commodities we need from abroad, but we want them to grow in tune with our social and political interests, and to do so they must grow in step with our agriculture.
In conclusion we are in a period of high inflation and shortage of world production, and consequent abnormal prices. The tide is likely to turn almost any time. Some of the outrageous margin between the farmer and consumer will be remedied by the turn in the tide itself, for it will eliminate the marking up of goods and the opportunity of vicious speculation. The dangers of the turn are twofold. First, unless we constructively remedy the unnecessary margin between the farmer and the wholesaler the farmer will receive the brunt of
the fall long before the supplies he must buy and the labor he must employ will have fallen in step. It will bring to him the greatest suffering in the community.
The farmer's position can be remedied by better distribution of the tax load, by improvement in our transportation system, by getting our markets free of impediments to free flow of competition, and by constructive improvement in our whole distribution system. The consumer will get relief from deflation, improvement in world production, and by eliminating the same wastes and unnecessary costs in our distribution system.
The second danger is that deflation itself will take place without constructive consideration. Great wisdom will be required on the part of our government in its great control of credit that it shall take place progressively and with care, in order that there shall be no sudden breaks, with their resulting demoralization, unemployment and misery.
We require a careful balance of general industry to agriculture. We cannot afford to build this nation into an industrial state dependent upon other lands for its food supply. We want our industries to grow, but we want agriculture to grow in pace with them. Many of our farmers made great sacrifices in the