MR HOOVER'S APPEAL

Evening Star, Issue 16625, 7 January 1918, Page 4

MR HOOVER'S APPEAL

"A NEW HOPE FOR AGRICULTURE." A remarkable appeal has been made by Mr Herbert Hoover, the United States Food Controller, to American farmers. "In the Food Administration," he says, "we have discussed these problems "at great length with many representative animal producers and agriculturists of the United States. We have often met the statement that in order to induce our farmer to understand this changed strategy in' production we anust secure for him some positive definite guaranty of a profit. But if I were a farmer it seems to mo, with the above facts so well founded—so evidently in the farmer's best interestr—before me, I should of mv own volition undertake such a policy even were there no patriotic call. Beyond this, however, it_ is now vital for every farmer in the United States' who can to take unto himself an additional five or tea hogs, a few sheep, or a few calves, in the national interest. It is a necessity for winning the war. And I cannot biit believe that every farmer in tho United States has the patriotism to answer this call of his nation in the hour of our Allies' needs. "I realise that under .certain conditions a lack of confidence in the stability of market prices may act as a deterrent. And, further, that this may sometimes come from a failure to glimpse an opportunity before one. I therefore wish to make this positive statement : that, so far as the United States Food Administration is able, through its influence on tho purchase of pork and its products for exportation, it will do all within its power to see that prices of pork are maintained in a ratio to feed prices that will cover not only costs of production, but proper remuneration to the producer. "By a system of license control of manufactures and distributors tho Food Administration will further help the producers. This system will tend toward the abolition of speculation, the punishment of profiteering, and tho assurance that the. consumer receives tho product at a fair ratio of the producer's price, and that, vice versa, the producer receives a fair interpretation of tho consumer's payment. All of these measures, I believe, 'ofler a new hope for agriculture. " From two and a-half years of contact with tho German army I haw como out 0f this horror with tho complete conviction that autocracy is a political faith and a -system that directly endangers and jeopardises tho futuro of our race—that threatens our very'independence. It has however, been able to-command a complete inspiration of devotion and selfsacrifice in its people to tho interest" of their nation. The Gorman farmer, in the name of the Fatherland, supports/a nation two-thirds as large as ours and threatens to subject tho world from an area as larn- G as Texas. I am convinced that we will find this same devotion a direct reply to the Gorman farmer—by the voluntary service of the American producer. ' This is and will bo its answer to autocracy. !

''There is a human side to all of this. I have spent two and a-half years in Europe m mtmato contract with the back wash of war. During this timi I have been faced with tho responsibility of lurmshmg daily the food of 7,000.000 ™Ta™'™, chil<lren amm S a population oi 10,000,000. and tho food of these is to<iay solely assured by the American farmer. During this time, however, the gradual diversion.and destruction of men and ships among our other Allies from tho support of another 100,000.000 women and children has thrown them 'wholly into a state of dependency upon the American fanner for their daily food. Thr-ir husbands, brothers, and "fathers are defending our liberty as surely as out own bovs in Franco.

" The production of more fats is today a critical necessity for the preservation of these people and tho maintenance of their constancy in tho war. Every pound of fat is as sure of service as every bullet, and even- hoc: is of ijiY-atcr value totte winning of tin's war than a shell.' " My vision of war is not of an academic problem to ho .solved by discussion and guarantees of profits; to me it is a vision of bvavo, dying men and sufferinowomen and children for service on whose behalf the greater exertion of the Ameriman farmer comes as a direct necessity and a direct plea. The American farmer who sees war as T see it needs no inducement and no inspiration but tho thought that every spade full of earth turned and every animal reared is lessening human suffering and guaranteeing the liberty of the world."