abolished both rent and wages. The peasants were assigned lands to be cultivated. The refusal of the peasants to grow crops from which they, individually, could not reap the benefit was one of the large contributing causes for the famine conditions which prevailed. The Soviet Government has recently modified its tenets with regard to agriculture and has permitted the peasant much greater freedom to enjoy the results of his harvests. The idea of State ownership of land has not been relinquished, but it is probable that some system of practically perpetual lease will be worked out.

What the final results in Russia will be can hardly be foretold, but many years must still elapse before Russia can take the place to which her resources entitle her in agricultural production.

RESULTS OF AGRARIAN REFORMS

I have not attempted to cover the mass of detail involved by the agrarian reforms in the different countries. This would require much more time than is available here and probably would not be of general interest. I have tried to bring out the general trends of this movement and the broad principles involved. It is important to appreciate that agrarian reform in European countries has been going on since the early days of feudalism, and that the World War has only served greatly to hasten a process which was already well under way. This movement will undoubtedly stand out in the future as one of the great accomplishments in human progress which has resulted from the upheaval and bloodshed of the war. Had it not been for the disturbances wrought by the war, it would probably have been many decades before the Roumanian peasant, for example, received the rights set forth in the decree of December, 1918.

The peasants of Europe have now won significant advantages in their age-long fight against the landlords and nobility. If the reforms are ultimately carried out in manners proposed they will undoubtedly have significant results for the future of Eastern Europe.

With the peasant in permanent possession of sufficient land to insure a livelihood and competence to his family, one of the inherent attributes of human nature will have been satisfied. This will result in a significant change in the psychology of the peasant. In the past the Eastern European peasant could never see the necessity of emigrating from his native land as long as vast areas of this were held by titled, often absentee, landlords. With the majority of the land in peasants' hands, those who are forced by circumstances to emigrate will, like those from the countries of Western Europe, be more willing to make their homes abroad instead of returning to harass their government.

Much still remains to be done by the governments of Eastern Europe if these reforms are to accomplish results of lasting benefit. In the first place, the peasants must be taught modern scientific agriculture. The age-long system of farming based upon custom and habit must be supplanted by one founded on science. Adequate means for agricultural credit must be provided. Agricultural coöperation must be encouraged. Again, the government must see to it that the peasant holdings are not split up by dichotomous inheritance until the holdings are too small to support their owners. Government must also see that no unnecessary restrictions are placed upon the movement of farm products either inter-or intra-nationally. And finally, the peasant must be allowed to enjoy the benefits of individual initiative.

than in the past, but a contented peasantry will contribute to a better, a more efficient, and a more stable

I wish only to add a few words to the valuable addresses of Dr. Surface and Dr. Gray. The analogy suggested by Dr. Gray between the United States and Great Britain should not, in my judgment, be pressed too far. There is little similarity between the situation. in Great Britain at the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws and in the United States at the present time. The repeal of the Corn Laws in England was a great social reform as well as a change in fiscal policy. Land in England was held by a comparatively small number of persons who received, in the form of rent, the profits derived from the high price of grain. In this country, on the other hand, there is a very wide distribution of land holding and the owners of land are directly affected by losses or gains in agricultural production. If, as Dr. Gray says, there is to be in this country a "fateful decision," it is probable that it will be made by the American farmers.

The human factor is very important in the analysis of any national policy. Possibly this is more true of agriculture than of other pursuits. I can, perhaps, indicate its character more effectively by contrasting two letters which I have received since coming to Williamstown. The first is from a farmer who for over fifty years has experienced the hardship of agriculture in one of the lessfavored sections of our Middle West. This farmer wrote in July, 1923: we have had rather a hard

year for crops

of September and the man had 5 hun acres of wheat and 2 hun acres of barley and in 15 or 20 minutes all gon some had their crops well insured but he was a good Christian man and he trusted God but he did put 11 hun dols insurance on his barley so he will get that to seed the ground again he ows me over 4 thous dols but cannot now pay the interest on it . . . it is hard on us all times is very hard here on the taxpayer as the roads and schools and other things to keep up and what we have to buy is so high.

You will see that these difficulties are unavoidable. They are the misfortunes of nature. In many cases they are accepted with resignation. But the American farmer has come to believe that there are other wrongs from which he is suffering that are remediable. He believes that there are certain conditions operating today to keep him in the status of a colonial agriculturist who furnishes foodstuffs and raw materials to industrial communities. In many cases he is suffering from the difficulties of financial deflation. In this respect agriculture is injured more than any other industry

not only because it is a long-time industry but because it is largely a matter of individual enterprise and reserves are not built up except under unusual circumstances to aid over-hard times. Young men, who have been thrifty and saved money and who have started in farming in recent years, were forced to go heavily into debt. The character of agriculture is such that it will be many years before these farmers can get out from under the debts which they have incurred.

It is conditions such as these which have led the American farmer to seek relief in politics. Mr. William Allen White of Emporia, Kansas, has been for over thirty years a keen, critical observer of conditions in the Middle West, and no man is better able than he to analyze the forces that are operating. In a personal letter dated July 26, 1923, he said:

I have your letter asking what I think the election of Johnson, of Minnesota, signifies in political and economic terms. I have been thinking it over pretty carefully for several days. In fact, more than a year I have been feeling that the economic conditions here in what might be called the western Mississippi basin would take a strongly marked political turn.

Basically our trouble is the old trouble we have had for forty years—transportation. We have to ship everything we sell to a buyer and put transportation in everything we buy from the maker. We are overloaded with freight rates. In every Pittsburgh-plus transaction which governs American prices and makes every industry a national instead of a local industry, steel, lumber, fuel, food and clothing, the Missouri valley and environing communities have to pay the price for nationally stabilized industries.

In prosperous times, there is enough margin in agriculture and those local industries dependent upon agriculture here in the Middle West to give the farmer and his friends a profit. So he is peaceful. But when the economic pinch comes, the farmer

feels it and he is intelligent enough to realize that he is suffering from a remediable wrong. He may be unwise in looking to politics for his remedy, but he does look to politics for a remedy and, when he gets into politics, he raises the very devil. The middle-western farmer of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin was an accomplice in the Peter Cooper movement, and the Greenback movement nearly fifty years ago. The railroad legislation of the mid-seventies was rightly called farmer legislation. Thirty years ago, the farmers of Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas gave backbone to the Populist movement and ten years ago, as you know, the Bull Moose found his best pasturing out here.

Each of these movements-futile in itself-left a permanent impression upon politics of the country and its institutional life. This part of the world is responsible for national prohibition, it pioneered in woman suffrage, gave impetus to the demand for direct election of United States senators, the passage of the income tax amendment, the adoption of the direct primary and a lot of propositions of that

sort.

It is a curious thing that when the farmer gets mad because he is unfairly treated in the matter of transportation, he forgets more or less about the transportation question and does something else.

Now this is a long way around to Magnus Johnson. But Johnson's election, taken with that of Shipstead, Frazier, Ladd, Brookhart and the tremendous majority given LaFollette, the victory of Ferris in Michigan and the obvious complex of Nebraska and Kansas as revealed by the recent election, proves very definitely that the Middle West is on the rampage again.

THE FARMER AND THE TARIFF

In order to present as clearly as possible the meaning of the tariff to farmers in the United States today, I have prepared the following classification of foodstuffs dividing them into three general groups according to the degree of dependency of the United States on foreign countries.

1. Practically total dependency of the United States on foreign countries.

1. Coffee

2. Tea

3. Cocoa

4. Spices

5. Bananas

6. Sago and arrowroot

7. Tropical nuts

8. Copra and coconut oil

9. Soy bean oil

10. Olive oil

11. Sesame, palm and palm-kernel oils 12. Some garden seeds

13. Greek currants

2. Partial dependency of the United States on foreign countries.

1. Sugar

2. Fancy cheese

3. Dried and frozen eggs 4. Fish

5. Honey

6. Almonds and walnuts 7. Chestnuts

8. Figs and dates

9. Lemons

10. Grapefruit

11. Olives

12. Pineapples

13. Mushrooms

14. Peanuts and peanut oil

3. Adequate domestic supply and in some

cases an exportable surplus.

1. Corn and corn products

2. Wheat and wheat flour

3. Other grains and grain products
4. Hog products

5. Beef

6. Mutton

7. Fresh and condensed milk

8. Butter and butter substitutes 9. Cheddar cheese

10. Lard substitutes

11. Cottonseed oil

12. Poultry

13. Rice

14. Apples and pears

15. Peaches, apricots and prunes 16. Oranges

17. Potatoes

18. Late onions

19. Beans

20. Summer vegetables

21. Hops

No tariff generalizations on the basis of this classification are possible. Even when we are totally dependent on an outside source for an agricultural product, it is not always true that the tariff interest is absent. The producers of butter and lard in the United States, for example, are concerned over the importation of tropical vegetable oils. Producers of products in the second class tend to be the most actively interested in the tariff. Typical of this group are the sugar and lemon producers. Producers of products in the third class, while not without an interest in tariff rates, regard other Government aid as of greater importance than tariff protection since in the case of many products with an exportable surplus prices are fixed in the world market. Among these are coöperative marketing, farm credit, Government regulation of middlemen, reduction of freight rates, maintaining better farm life through the assistance of agricultural colleges, the building of roads, and the teaching of vocational agriculture in high schools, either with or without Federal Government assist

ance.

Agricultural industries are obviously dependent upon geographical and climatic conditions. It follows, therefore, that many factors other than political action determine the localization of these industries. In a few regions the soil and climate restrict production to a single product. Normally, however, the farmer has a considerable choice of products. The choice he makes depends upon competition and competition is affected by many factors.

THE FARMER'S INTEREST IN
TRANSPORTATION

Among these transportation is of great importance. Large areas of the earth's surface have been rendered productive only because of the develop

ment of railroads and steamship lines, and there are still large areas of the earth's surface which can be made available for cultivation, if transportation is extended. With the development of transportation, particularly of refrigerating facilities, international competition in food and food products has become an outstanding factor in world economics. From the standpoint of the consumer, it has contributed towards a stabilization of supply, thus reducing the hardships resulting from local shortages of crops and perhaps eliminating the possibility of serious famines.

From the standpoint of the producer, transportation facilities have extended his markets, but they have also increased the keenness of international competition. The effect of cheapening transportation upon the agricultural industry has been strikingly illustrated in American agricultural history. The building of canals and railroads in the United States between 1820 and 1860 was largely responsible for the decline of wheat growing in New England and New York. In the eighties of the last century, European agriculture began to feel and to fear competition with agricultural products imported from frontier countries such as the United States. This was one of the factors which contributed to the agrarian movement for protection in such countries as France and Germany. American wheat and American meat products were in some cases even excluded by high import duties and sanitary regulations. Competition of a similar kind is now a factor in the movement for agricultural protection in the United States.

In addition, there is keen competition between the exporting countries themselves. American wheat, Argentine wheat and Canadian wheat compete in the European market. Cotton

seed oil produced in the United States competes in the international market with soya bean and coconut oil produced in the Orient.

OTHER FACTORS IN AGRICULTURE

The type of agriculture frequently depends not only upon transportation but upon the size of the agricultural unit. If agriculture is organized in a large way, and carried on in large farms, or estates, the nature of the crops is likely to be different from the case where small peasant farming is the rule. The breaking up of the large estates in Eastern Europe is, as Dr. Surface has said, having a striking effect upon the character of agriculture.

The availability of agricultural laborers is also a factor in determining the nature of agriculture production. Before 1914, the estates in eastern Germany depended upon Polish and Russian labor which, during certain seasons of the year, migrated to the estates. This supply has to a large extent been cut off by the changes wrought by the war. This will require a shift to crops which can be handled by fewer men and more machinery.

Types of food peoples eat also influence the agricultural development of a country. Rice holds a place in Japan which is occupied by practically no one cereal in any other country. Unless the Japanese people are willing to adopt some other form of food to supplement rice, the rice question is likely to become of a serious importance in the Pacific. The peoples of India and China are non-meat eating and non-milk drinking peoples, and this affects the character of their agricultural production.

It was the theory of Friedrich List that the tropics would become a great source of food supplies for the temperate zones and that the temperate zones would become primarily manu