Newspapers / The Carolina Union Farmer … / April 25, 1912, edition 1 / Page 8
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Page Eight Carolina Union Farmer PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY BY THE UNION FARMER PUBllSHING COMPANY. OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE NORTH CAROLINA FARMERS’ UNION. Subscription Price: One Dollar a Year. 49” All subscriptions are payable in advance, and tbe p^er wi^e discontinued when the time expires, unless renewed. The date on the tag which bears the name of the subscriber indicates the time to which the subscription has been paid. J. Z- GREEN, Marlisville, MRS. E. D. NALL. Sanford. C. A. EURY, Editor Home Department General Manager ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES JOHN D. ROSS. 812 Hartford Building, Chicago. L. E. WHITE, Tribune Building, New York. Filtered as second-class matter March 21, 1912, at the Post- office at Raleigh, North Carolina, under the Act of March 3.1897. Raleigh, N. C. April 25, 1912. EDITORIAL COMMENT. DIRECT SELLING AND BUYING. In the counties that grow sweet potatoes for the market farmers have been disposing of this prod uct on the local markets at $1.00 per bushel this spring. In the counties where farmers have been buying seed sweet potatoes they have been paying $1.75 per bushel. Allowing twelve or fifteen cents a bushel for freight charges, it leaves the middle men sixty cents per bushel for the simple act of transferring this product from producer to con sumer. In many other instances, the percentage of profits that go to distributing agents runs up to a hundred per cent and above. As long as we maintain a distributing or selling system that costs an average of sixty per cent to get farm products from producers ,to consumers can we ever hope to make the business of farming as profitable and as attractive as other vocations? And as long as we are content to maintain a dozen distributing agents where one could do the work (under co-operative selling and buying) more satisfactorily and more economically, do you think “tariff reform” or even “bursting the trusts” could help this sort of busi ness suicide which we, as a class, are guilty of? * ♦ * CONGESTING LOCAL MARKETS. Depending upon local merchants to buy our products and then rushing our products upon the local markets regardless of economic demand, is a disgusting and ruinous methods of doing business. If the local dealer has no market for the products at home he must hunt up a place to sell them, and as handling farm produce is a side line with him he isn’t expected to be in touch with many good places to dispose of these products, and with the element of uncertainty that confronts him, he doesn’t feel like risking much of a price, so he bids low on the products and gets them, because the unorganized farmer, with no selling system of hi^> own, has never looked up any other place to sell his products except in the local stores of his near est town. Under this method of selling the more congested the local markets become the lower the prices descend, and the harder it becomes for farmers to realize even a small profit for their Industry. ♦ * • WORKING H.ARD FOR BENEFIT OF OTHERS. Where we work hard through long hours and put into practice methods that increase the output of our farms we flatter ourselves over the re sults, and the world applauds us, but when we per mit others to fix the prices of our products lower and lower, as we congest the local markets, we must keep it in mind that the (ILstrllmtors uiul con- sumeis of our product.s become tlie real benetici- aries of our labor and our industry, and until we establish, own and operate a marketing system of our own, we can never hope to become the bene ficiaries of our own industry and our economies in production. ^ * * * ACCESSIBLE LOCATIONS. In building our warehouses and other distribut ing enterprises we should first select with care the site. It should be selected with special considera tion of its accessibility to its prospective patrons and its prospective enhancement in value as an asset. As a rule, it isn’t a wise policy for a County Union to promote and establish an enter prise for the whole county at some small town or flag station just because land is cheap there, or be cause a site has been donated. If we succeed in establishing a selling system that will bring pro ducers and consumers closer together, the places of business should be located near the consumers to prevent the necessity of useless handling and shipping. In a State like North Carolina, where tliere is great diversity of farming interests, dis tributing warehouses should be established in the larger towns and cities first. While the real es tate part of the assets will cost more in the larger places these assets will, if purchased right, grow in value much faster than in the smaller places and in that way will put the stock of the cor poration at a premium, and thus give to the cor poration a more attractive commercial rating as the years go by. * * * patronage would thereby render him able to be come a shareholder in the stock of the corpora tion. Whatever may be said as to the theory o co-operation, it is‘the opinion of those who have studied the proposition deeply, that no co-opera tive method can be put successfully into operation in this country without capitalization and corpor ation, and along with the building of the corpor ation (which at best must progress slowly) its stockholders and patrons must be taught by act ual demonstration what co-operation means an its possible benefits, for the biggest and stronges co-operative corporation can not succeed withou the support and patronage of the would-be co-op erators. 4. « V CO-OPERATION OR CORPORATION. Dicussing the necessity for a business system of selling and buying, .Benjamin West makes the following comment in Texas Farm Co-operator; “Corporation is better than co-operation for these times, as any one can understand dollars paid as dividends, the very feel of money as it touches the hand is a satisfying certainty that he has profited, but the mind untrained to the intricacies of Savings being equal to profit does not so easily grasp to the co-operative enterprise, is more practical as mills and the trading would unhesitatingly recognize them as a regular system of busi ness on a large scale and banks only ask as to reliability before accommodating them. All systems of business are less disposed to recognize the purely co-operative enterprise, throwing expensive and cumbrous regulations around transactions with them. Those work ing for a corporation know they must make good in showing profits paid to stockholders and in proper treatment of customers, while in a purely co-operative enterprise where profits are not shown in records of the busi ness, since there is no way to show what each has saved the business and its patrons. To put it in a nut-shell, a dividend in the shape of a Ten Dollar Bill placed in the farm er’s hand is much more convincing as to what he has made, than a slip of paper with fig ures showing what he has saved, the feel is not theje.” ♦ * * DIFFERENCE IN IIETAIL ONLY. Whether we agree or disagree with Mr. West in his conclusion, it is a fact that the principle of co operation can be applied through a corporation, and if the corporation is owned by the parons who get their benefits in form of dividends on their own capital and patronage, then the corporation becomes co-operative in results. Therefore, in stead of concluding that “corporation is better than co-operation,” as Mr. West expresses it, why not say that what we need is “both corporation and co-operation,” for in this age of commercialism one can not be successful for the farmer without the other. If, in the dis tribution of profits, dividends are made both upon capital invested and patronage furnished, the cor poration would become still more co-operative, and its benefits might thereby be extended to the organized farmer who, for lack of means, has not become a stockholder, and if deemed advisable, his dividends on patronage could be applied to payment of stock in the corporation, and his own WHO SHOULD IM) THE PRICING? A lady correspondent to the Mississippi Unio .Advocate says: “I hope and trust that I will live to see the day when the merchant will have to ask old ‘red neck’ what he will take for his cotton, corn or potatoes, and all other things we can raise. We now have to ask them what they will give us. I do not blame the merchant if he can get cotton for three cents for taking it. I blame the farmer that lets him have it. The farmer could be as independent as they are if they would stick to each other and conserve their interests.” That farmer’s wife has the right conception ol the duty of the men on the farm who wear the pants and pretend to be independent. Certainly the farmer has just as much right to put a tag on his products as the merchant has to put upon his goods. He has just as much right price his products as the lawyer, the doctor or the dentist has the right to price his services. It had been exercising this undenied right all these years, the bulk of the wealth and comforts an ^ conveniences in this country would be in the rur districts, among the real wealth producers, instea of being controlled by non-producers. But, it meekly surrender the right of price fixing to other classes, can we reasonably be surprised, if these other classes eventually own all the wealth of country, farming lands included? The right th others assume to price our products can never successfully contested by farmers as individual^ There is but one way out, and that is throug organization and “co-operative corporation ~ ^ ^^ italized business supported by co-operative P®" tronage. THE 1‘ARCELS POST. f “More about the Parcels Post” is the title o 3liD^ itary .article on first page, written for the Caro Union Farmer, by Col. J. Bryan Grimes, Secre of State and a member of the A. & M. Local, 104 7. Col. Grimes is one of the original nio for a general parcels post and his treatment bill now under consideration is very clear ai farmer who will take time to read can easily derstand the present situation as relates “imitation parcels post” that some of our NO- ,vers .. of and uU' tn® ■epf®' sentatives desire to give the people in order the e.vpress companies may continue to rob country. ’THE FAHMEHS UNION PLEDGE* We are printing in another column the recently circulated by the State Secretary^ signers. A large number of these pledges h ready been returned to the office of the F retary properly filled out but there are * in ^ all parts of the State who have not yet pledge. This pledge is as much for the Farmers of the State as the Cotton Fariu®'" ^o' every farmer of the State, whether a bacco planter, should obligate himself aS P^ ed in this pledge. If no signatures taken in your territory, cut out the blaol^ qI other page of this paper and have the your local sign it, then return it to B. Secretary, Aberdeen, N. C.
The Carolina Union Farmer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 25, 1912, edition 1
8
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