Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 111, 7 November 1933, Page 6

Evening Post.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, .1933.

DANGER ON TWO FRONTS

Day by day the tremendous struggle in the United States gains in interest and also in anxiety. In die variety of interesting developments reported yesterday on the wide fronts of the National Recovery campaign the first place was given to the failure of President Roosevelt's con-, ference with the Governors of several of the farming States. • A paradoxical turn in the strained relations between Mr. Henry Ford and the National Recovery administration showed that his company was proposing to suspend the employment of 9000 men for a week "in compliance with the new prohibition against work in this country," while General Johnson, the chief instrument of this "prohibition," was ready to relax it if the defiant Mr. Ford would give him the chance. From Pennsylvania came the news that the United Anthracite Miners' Union had called for a general strike, and as the object was to enforce the recognition of the union, which under the National Recovery Act and the Code the companies have no right to refuse, the men had presumably the support of the administration. Today we are told that the last-minute efforts of the N.R.A. Labour Board to effect a settlement had failed, and 70,000 miners were expected to answer the call. Against all this bad news the settlement of a strike affecting 1000 workers in Detroit on terms which were not stated and the expected settlement of another coal.strike of unrecorded dimensions provided ( a poor set-off. , ' The grave anxiety expressed yesterday regarding the failure of the President's conference, with the Governors of some farming States has been speedily justified. The President had been asked to apply remedies which he regarded as useless or illegal or both, and he had the courage to say so, but not without expressing a wish for further conferences.with the fanners' representatives. Price-fixing and quotas were evidently the two principal demands submitted on behalf of the farmers, as they are the only ones mentioned, and it is not surprising that Mr. Roosevelt was unable to accept either of them. The comment of Governor Langar, of North Dakota, was as follows: ■ The conference has beon a 100 per cent, failure. I am very 'disappointed and disgusted. The farmer is the forgotten man. Everybody else has been hero before him and got all the money. There is nothing left for the farmer. And the comments of the Press in the various States concerned were said to indicate "the possibility of a widespread farmers' strike holiday." We do not know whether any special significance is to be attached to the word "holiday." If there is, it would be properly applicable to a passive policy of "down tools" designed, to let the town-dweller see how he could get on without the farmer. But the report from New York today shows that the apprehensions expressed in these' Press comments have been almost instantly realised and in a far more dangerous fashion than the mere -downing of tools. -. ■ ■ - • As today's reports show, there has been a recurrence, in lowa of the same militant tactics oh the part of the farmers that threatened very ugly 1 consequences a few months, ago, and a similar, though apparently less violent, outbreak is also reported from Wisconsin. In many parts of lowa—for we assume that the "many sections" mentioned in the, Dcs Moines message on which our report is based are confined to that State—farmers on strike have organised "an intense picketing of the highways and railroads to prevent the transportation of food." The holding-up of a train for the purpose of releasing live stock in transit and the killing of one picket and the injuring of several others through a resulting collision on the road are the first fruits of this campaign. In Wisconsin thousands of pounds of milk have been dumped, telephone 1 communications have been cut, and ' other acts of sabotage committed. The Governor of lowa has threat- , ened to call out the State militia unless the civil authorities* immediately restore order, and it is to be hoped that, if the movement spreads to North Dakota, the Governor of that State may make what amends he can for his provocative comments on the failure of the conference by showing an equally firm front. If , the strike Readers in all the other States affected-carry out the intention suggested by another message, and follow the lead of lowa and Wisconsin, it is possible that v the movement1 may acquire s . sufficient momentum to call for Federal interference. • . ;It is certainly not1 for lack of i Federal expenditure that the western farmers are in their sad plight, but it is, of. course, inevitable that the unfortunate President should be blamed for what he has failed to do with little or no credit for y what he has done. It is also obvious that his power to help the farmers will only be weakened by the manner in ! which they are showing their resenti ment, but it is evident that, he is ; not including in his new embarrassments the responsibility for asserting the law against their, militant ' tactics. So much is implied in one iof today's reports from Washington. ' President Roosevelt believes_ he has , done everything possible to relieve the • farmers along economically sound lines. He will now attempt to curb the

agrarian strike and the growing criticism of the National Recovery Act by a publicity campaign.

The first of these 'statements is formally correct, but it conveys the unpleasant suggestion that, having given the farmers all the help that he can "along economically sound lines," he may now be driven to try lines that are economically unsound. He has refused to touch price-fixing, and the refusal may be accepted as final; but inflation, though it does not appear to have come before the conference, is a greater danger, and if matters continue to take their present course it may have acquired irresistible force by the time' Congress meets again in January. All that the President says of his immediate policy is that he will seek "to curb the agrarian strike and the growing criticism of the N.R.A. by a publicity campaign." It is inspiring to .think of this cruelly overburdened man undertaking personally another publicity campaign to meet the growing danger on both the urban and the rural fronts. But, with all his apparently inexhaustible resources of courage and hope and persuasion, Mr. Roosevelt will surely need some new constructive programme to work upon if he is to succeed. The prophecy of "a higher farm price for 1934 as a result of increased domestic consumption" which is made by the Department' of Agriculture in a statement reported yesterday will not help him much, but one would like to think that its reference to foreign markets and monetary policy indicates the lines on which the President's thoughts are moving. Tariff reduction and currency Stabilisation in co-operation with Britain would supply both his own country and the world with solid grounds for new hope, which they both need. .