So much for the consumer, whose ideals never really differ
from the producer's. They flourish together. If the producer suffers, his loss will ultimately damage the consumer, and, indeed, the middleman. To return to the Ministry's plan for preventing such violent fluctuations in prices ; the needs of the market can be pretty accurately gauged. They vary little from year to year. The acreage of the crop can be accu- rately told and the yield approximately guessed. What is wanted is a central organizer or group of organizers, wielding due authority, who shall have the power to deal with the surplus and prevent it being thrown heedlessly on the market. No private person can start a farina factory or an alcohol extracting or a drying plant or any other apparatus for dealing with unwanted potatoes. It is estimated that within one year potato producers would have received £7,000,000 more if the comparatively small surplus had been held up, even if no value at all was allowed for this withheld surplus. The nation, or indeed the industry itself, would benefit greatly by facilities for extracting such by-products as farina or alcohol, though the isolated manufacture might show a loss, since it would be brought into use only at particular periods. Never- theless, the erection of such factories would pay a real dividend both to the grower and to the nation.
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