WHAT ABOUT THE PACKERS?

...In the matter of price regulation, there must be established not absolute prices, but a scale which recognizes differences in quality...

...The car system has been used as another fortifying this monopoly, and should taken over under the railway powers vernment...

...There should be local abattoirs, as found in European countries, under public, co-operative, or even private auspices, that could satisfactorily cater to Jocal demands, receiving supplementary supplies, when necessary, by shipment from central points...

...It is and an extrenekt technical business and cannot be handled by experts without g the producers' market and the effi-manufacture and distribution of prodif taken ever by the Government, forced to pay for equipment based and duplication of plant, and well On and this unnatural artificial more and more dispersed by the establishment of adequate local agencies, the loss of shinkage would fall upon the public instead of upon those who have created the monster...

...This is especially obvious in the matter of the shipment of live animals to central points and in duplication of plant...

...subsequent to the manipulation by the packers, that portion of the meat required for the Government or the Allies should be taken and toll paid for its handling, and the portion distributed by the packers in the civilian trade should be carefully graded and sent through the established channels of distribution, with snch oversight and control as will prevent extortion or discriminatory prices, while the Government should be repaid by the packers for its purchases of that portion of the live stock thus distributed...

...The Government might state that a class of cattle which, if put on feed in fair condition, would be finished with not more than thirty bushels of corn, and should constitute the standard in the feeding month, and such standard should be sustained when cottonseed meal, alfalfa and other feeds were used with or in place of corn...

...Tne whole course of the packing monopoly has been to destroy local butchering, with a minimum ^concession necessarily made to the economics of the situation by extending some of the plants {further west...

...Furthermore, the Government purchase of livestock would tend to eliminate the slaughter of breeding stock needed for future production...

...After the packing business shall have been sweated down to normal proportions in consonance with correct economics, it would then be time to take up as a direct question the Government ownership and operation of the remaining factors...

...Exigencies of drought, over-stocking and individual hard luck continually drive to market breeding animals that are needed and could find pasturage and use in the understocked sections of the country...

...and the rigid enforcement of law discriminatory practices in the e and retail meat trade, the Government assumption and opershe entire packing business, that seems the present time an impossible absurdir packing business, through more than of steady development, has acquired ajed efficiency in the handling and dis-of live stock and meat products...

...Rule of the Packers UNDER such a system the packers would have no interest in working down the qualities of live stock or of placing higher grade animais in a lower class...

...In the case of the cattle none but heavily corn-fed stock or a few ripened grass-fed range cattle from selected regions will hold up under shipment...

...Recent arbitration has gone far to correct the abuses, but it would seem an extremely dangerous time for the government to become involved in the questions that would arise in this essential industry...

...In many respects it represents extreme economic waste...

...If compelled to prescribe for the packers, the symptoms would indicate that it would be well to lock some of them up for the sake of example and parole the others on good behavior, commandeering their services for the proper and legitimate management of the business in which they have shown enterprise, ability and cussed-ness worthy of wonder and admiration...

...It is probable that the re-car service is no more than adequate t packer needs, but it should be exd so distributed in its use as to cater itimate abattoir trade of the country, h conditions the killing of range cattle rce would be possible when coupled hp assurance of a non-discriminatory mar-outlet...

...The Government purchase would tend to conserve and redistribute this necessary element in livestock production...

...Moreover, the Government would be in position to designate the qualities of meat required in any month...

...The small ,waste in treatment of offal would be little in comparison with shrinkage and loss of quality through transportation...

...In many cases these same animals, if killed near homo, will famish meat of delicious flavor and satisfactory texture...

...Illustrative of this: The extra fat, prize, heavy steer would ordinarily consume something like seventy bushels of corn...

...Ownership of Yards yards ownership by the packers is ageous invasion of public policy, ds are inherently and necessarily a railway terminal system, and should nized...

...The larger bulk of grass cattle deteriorate, both in weight and in quality, by long shipment until it becomes necessary to tore them by the feeding of grain...

...Moreover, the Government could establish during the remainder of the year a standard of grain-fed animals upon which prices should be based...

...It is the inability to obtain a complete line of meats, owing to packers' discrimination, that has been the large factor in eliminating this local trade...

...In connection with the difficult question of price regulation which seems essential, we have before us two possible solutions...

...In the months when grass cattle come in, the Government could well discourage the use of grain for feeding, and frankly state that standard grass cattle would furnish the basis upon which the prices should be regulated, and that little reward would be paid for grain-fed cattle in such months...

...Difficulty With Labor NOTHING could be more difficult to handle from the labor standpoint that the situation that would follow the Government's assumption of direct operation of the business with the immense force of disorganized, incoherent, unskilled people now engaged in the packing industries...

...But this is not an adequate solution...

...The production of such cattle should not be encouraged...

...Having purchased the live stock, the Government would turn it over to the packers to be handled on the haeis of a toll, representing a reasonable charge for handling...

...The fact that the minds of buyers, seller and commission man usually meet on the question quality, if unbiased by self-interest and the fa -t that there are great numbers of men expert in such classification, would make it possibla, granted a general price scale, to properly tag the livestock as concerns its quality...

...ree matters should receive immediate* Aon: the acquisition of the yards as a the railroad equipment...

...The concealment of packer in the stockyards attests to the pack-ion that this is one of the most im-tifications in their monopoly and one sore points in the public mind...

...First, regulating the prices through a conspiracy in restraint of trade by the organized monopolistic power of the packers, and second, regulation of prices through Government purchase at the great central stockyards markets, which, though confessedly a choice of evils, as every possible action at this time must be, has many factors that commend it...

...This extravagance and waste is clearly recognized by the Food Admi 1-istration as unjustifiable under the present demands for corn for more useful purposes...

...This might or might not prove necessary...

...the assumption and control of the tor cars...

...Others Should Be Paroled On Good Behavior By WILLIAM KENT, Member of Federal Tariff Commission IMUST be recognized and conceded that the packing industry is an artificial and not a natural monopoly...