Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-06-15

Such minimum price would tend to insure
the farmer, not only against loss, but against the
possibility of not making good profit 1t was
pointed out to the committee however. that prices
of farm machinery and TOOLS fertilizer and other
costs of production might advance so that even
the guaranteed price would not mean proht. IN
asmuch as the protection of the farmer is the
main concern of all this price-fxing legislation
and the minimum price is TO allow a good profit
over all costs Of production, this is not probable
The provision in the bill which allows for the fix
ing of a maximum price was drawn, however, with
this contingency largely in mind. 1t would make
1t possible TO fix the price of farm machinery so
that the farmer could not lose his profit in in
creased costs
In the long and earnest discussion which pre-
coded the drawing Of the price-fxing clauses In
the bill now before congress, the ultimate con-
sumner was seldom mentioned However 1t may
be applied, the theory of the bill as understood
by the congressman, to fix prices solely with
a view to the farmers welfare. 1t is assumed
that there will then be greatly increased produc-
ton, and that this abundance, together with the
elimination of speculation the careful supervision
of shipments and of storage will automatically take
care Of prices.
For example, many farmers this year sold their
potatoes for dollar bushel and afterward saw
those same potatoes sold in the market for three
four dollars bushel. It is evident that carriers
and middlemen made an exorbitant profit at the
expense of both producer and consumer. Under
the food administration planned, supposing that
a minimum price had been fixed the farmer would
have gotten perhaps two dollars for his potatoes,
and with careful government supervision OF ship
ment and storage, they would have reached the
consumer at just enough more than that to pay
the legitimate costs of distributing them. An arbf-
trary maximum price upon potatoes, it may be
safely said, will be of the last expedients re-
sorted to by the food administrator.
Needles to say. these ~price-fxing provisions of
the bill will be fought in congress and may be
stricken out. Even the committee deviated some
what from scientific lines In drawing them. The
consensus of expert opinion seems to be that a
fixed or basic price is the best. A minimum price
to the producer insures him but does not prevent
speculation. A maximum price is hard to enforce,
because If the farmer does not want to sell his
corn, for example, at the maximum price, or IL
the market price drops below the maximum price,
he may feed his corn to his hogs and sell them. A
fixed price, guaranteed by the government, which
will assure the producer of a good profit over all
costs of production is considered TO be the most
scientific method of price fixing. This sort of
price urged upon the house agricultural com
mittee by Clifford Pinchot, but the congressman
would not accept IL, apparently because they were
afraid their farmer constituents would resent Law
ing limit thus arbitrarily set to the amount they
might earn.
1t might be added that according to Dr. A. E.
TAYLOR who spent some months in Europe studying
food administration, the European countries have
not been able to keep the price of food down to
-" rate of. wages. All over the world the cost OF
living has been advancing more rapidly than the
rate of wages. War has brought this fact home to
the European governments, for in order to keep
their industrial classes at work making munitions
they have had to pension them According to Dr.
Taylor the German government has civil pension
list of between and eight million people, who
are paid pensions for the stated purpose of making
I'D the difference between wages and the cost OF
living Similar civil pensions, he says paid in
the neutral countries of Holland and Switzerland
for the same reason War, by making every man
necessary to his government, has forced the gov
ernments to take heed of what is necessary to every