198 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



italist banker or merchant, is creating a strong pres- 

 sure for governmental action of some sort. 



Theoretically, the ideal marketing machinery for 

 farm products would consist of a thoroughly organized 

 group of agricultural producers, dealing with equally 

 well-organized groups or communities of consumers, 

 with only such intermediaries, and these also presum- 

 ably well organized, as are absolutely necessary to the 

 most effective handling of the product from grower to 

 consumer. Through storages owned in part by pro- 

 ducer and in part by consumers, and with large collec- 

 tion units or centers managed by producers' associa- 

 tions, and large distributing centers or units managed by 

 consumers' agencies, a large part of the present machin- 

 ery of the middlemen would be displaced. Public 

 markets would be a factor in the plan. Then with the 

 government owning or controlling the means of trans- 

 portation, we would have a thoroughly democratic and 

 effective scheme of distribution of food products. 



Practically we are a long distance from the realiza- 

 tion of such a well-balanced scheme, but government 

 may at least encourage and aid the organization of both 

 producers and consumers, and through its police power 

 abolish the more flagrant abuses that arise in the pres- 

 ent distributing process. Much will be gained by a 

 more complete system of information, gathered and 

 disseminated by government, relative to food needs, 

 food supplies, food prices, food movements. Fortu- 

 nately, a good beginning has been made in this field. 

 Publicly owned elevators, abattoirs, storages and ware- 

 houses we may be obliged to have if private interests 

 do not bend to reasonable demands from the farmers 

 for fair dealing. 



As a general principle, we should accept the idea that 



