TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 489 



of exchange, they will undoubtedly come into the markets again for our 

 agricultural products. 



How seriously that may affect us we cannot tell. If the matter of our 

 foreign relations were settled and credit extended to those people, I have 

 an idea they would come back into production rather rapidly and their 

 relations would be resumed. But there are other factors that will enter 

 into the situation. There is going to be a higher grade of efficiency, not 

 only in agriculture but in industrial manufacturing, in foreign countries 

 as well as in our own, when we get back to normal conditions of business. 

 Lloyd George made the statement about a year before the war ended 

 that there wasn't the same machinery in a single factory or industrial 

 plant in Great Britain that had been there before the war. All of it had 

 been replaced by higher-powered and better machinery. The same thing 

 applies to all European countries today, except Russia. Those countries 

 can come back, and we can depend upon having stronger competition than 

 we ever met before from all of those countries in mercantile lines, except- 

 ing Russia, and no one knows when things will be settled there. 



I think they will throw onto the market large quantities of mercantile 

 products and manufactured products, and some of them may displace 

 some of our own manufactured products. Then we have the great south- 

 ern continent. South America, that is increasingly productive, and com- 

 ing into agricultural competition in a way we have never seemed to real- 

 ize. They have advantages in economy of production bound to tell when 

 they compete on the markets with us. 



On the plains of Argentina I saw the finest lambs you can imagine that 

 would come into the markets of this and foreign countries where they 

 could be marketed about Christmas time for the holiday trade in the best 

 possible finish and the highest quality without any grain whatever. They 

 had nothing except what they could pick from their extensive alfalfa pas- 

 tures. We cannot compete in production with that kind of mutton for 

 the holiday trade, or for the winter months where they have the open 

 grazing with no expense except pasture. And practically all the meats of 

 the Argentine, and that applies to Brazil as well, are produced in the 

 open on the pastures where they have nothing but cheap land and cheap 

 grass and the care of their stock to contribute to the expense. 



They have not been able to put those products upon the markets of 

 this country and foreign countries during the war by reason of lack of 

 shipping facilities. These facilities are now being restored upon a better 

 basis than they have ever been, and they are going to be able to market 

 those products. They are going to come into competition with us on 

 foreign markets and right here in our own markets. We have some very 

 important economic trade conditions to work out, more so than any we 

 have ever faced, and it is well indeed that an organization like this has 

 come into existence at this time. 



It has never been so badly needed as it is today. The farmers have 

 something to say when it comes to questions of shipping, international 

 trade, and other important policies, also when it comes to the develop- 

 ment and protection of industries in this country. I am absolutely cer- 

 tain in my own mind that we are going to be confronted with a keener 



