sacks returned. It would prove hut a doubtful advan- 

 tage- to have his sacks returned him, first owing to the 

 large number lie uses and the sum they would represent 

 ii capital lying idle, and, second, for the deterioration 

 they would suffer from the absence of a sound place to 

 store them pending next year's harvesting. If he de- 

 cided to dispose of them after every crop then the price 

 would naturally be low owing to the supply exceeding 

 the demand. 



STATE INTERVENTION AND ELEVATORS. 



Elevators alone are the sole solution of the problem. 



This solution should need no better advocacy than 

 that of the ex- Minister of Agriculture and Public Works, 

 Dr. Ramos Mexia, who in his programme for Public 

 Works of 1912 has left us the following: 



"The bags used for last year's crop (1911) repre- 

 sented a value of nearly fifty millions (4,365,079) it 

 being calculated that the cost of those required for the 

 l:> million tons reaped in 1912, was $38.33 cents paper 

 per hundred kilos. " 



"The economies to be obtained by the grain eleva- 

 tor system in the manipulation of cereals represent four- 

 teen millions, (1,222,222), according to the calculations 

 of the best authorities : it is estimated that the sum 

 which the extortion of the Grain Trust adds, to its le- 

 giiimate commercial gains, owing to the absence of ele- 

 vators, amounts to fifty cents per hundred kilos." 



"Therefore, the agriculturalists receive each year 

 128 millions (11,174,603) less than they should receive, 

 due to the employment of bags, to useless expenses, and 

 to the pressure of the monopoly ; and yet; the only re- 

 medy that is found for this enormous evil is the pur- 

 chase by the Government of one-fiftieth part of the ne- 

 cessary bags. *' 



"I doubt the efficacious result of the* Government's 

 intervention with such limited elements, and I doubt still 

 more the advisability of initiating State Socialism in this 

 country by intervening as a commercial competitor 

 whenever an article of prime necessity becomes dear. " 



" There is another remedy. To my mind it is not a 

 question of the price of bags as they are dear at any 

 price; the radical cure consists in suppressing them." 



' ' If the expense is unnecessary and useless, if ma- 

 nipulation of bags. by hand is more expensive, more ex- 

 posed to losses and occupies more time than mechanical 

 handling of grain in bulk, why encourage the system 

 instead of endeavouring to do away with it?" 



