Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1884 — Two Scales of Prices. [ARTICLE]

Two Scales of Prices.

j Chicago Times.] Everything the farmer lias to sell is.very low; everything, or at least nearly everything, that the farmer has to buy is comparatively high. Wheat over a large proportion of the region in which it is produced brings the raiser but fifty cts. par bushel. The price of grain harvesters and self-binders, however, remains the same as when wheat was a dollar a bushel in the place where it was raised. The same is the

case with the plow that turnthe furrow, the harrow that pulverized the soil, and the seeder that put in the crop. Everything that is turned off from the farm is very cheap, but everything that is turned out from the factory is dear. The old scale of prices for farm products has all been chang ed, but the scale of prices for the products of manufactories remain unchanged. Beef, mutton and wool are all low, but posts and wires necessary to fences pasture cost as much as they ever did. The cost of procuring materials and of putting them together so as to afford protection to animals during storms and in winter has not been reduced with all the decline in farm products.

Th 6 price of cioth is not affected appreciably by the fall in wool. A farmer may get a small price for the hides he has to dispose of, but-he pays a high price for the boots shoes and larness that he is obliged to purchase. Potatoes are cheap, but the bogs in which they are put and the wagon that is used for taking them to market cost as much as they did when potatoes brought twice the money they do at present. It is also noticeable that the rates of transportation and the commission merchant’s charges for selling them, areas high as when potatoes brought si a bushel.

Formerly the price of articles required for food governed the price of almost another articles. The price of almost everything was governed by that of wheat, as that was regarded as the most important of all products. All this is changed now. Fanners have nothing to do in regulating prices. They take what is offered for their produots. i hey are too numerous aud too widely scattered to combine. The prices of nearly every article they are obliged to purchase, however, is regulated by associations and embinations formed among m nufacturers. The manufacturers of nearly every important article combine to limit production and to keep up prices. They even combine to prevent the establishment of manufactories

similar to ttiMr own. In many departments of manufacturing there is no competition between different establishments. A uniform scale of prices is adopted which is rigidly adhered to. In many cases our patent laws and tariff system enable them to establish and perpetuate the most oppressive monopolies. The western farmer learns the price of wheat and pork by Beading the market reports of Liverpool. He gets no information about the prices of cloth and articles made from iron and steel by consulting the quotations in the papers of Manchester, Sheffield and Mminghain; Ueae owZ tions are of no value in this country, except it may be to enable our enterprising man* ufactureis to double The fig;, urea. The produc rs of artfc cles of food in this country are obliged to compete witn the producers of similar products in every part of the world, but our manufacturers, whose goods fanners are obliged to have, have no competition except among them- ! selves. As before stated, they generally manage to prevent such competition. With such 1 a state of affairs, it is no great

marvel that farmers are npt prosperous.