Evening star., 1924-04-04
IN TODAY'S SPOTLIGHT
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS

The McNary- -Haugen bill for the re-
lief of agriculture is destined to
plunge Congress into as great a de-
bate upon fundamentals of economies
as would the tariff question, If tariff
were a new proposition.
The principles which the measure
proposes are new and revolutionary.
It's advocates declare that it will lift
farming out of the slough of despond.
It's most enthusiastic champions are
the Secretary of Agriculture and all
the economist of the Agricultural De-
partment. Organized labor recog-
nizes that its purpose is to increase
the cost of farm.>products to a parity
with increases in cost of other sta
pies; labor and agriculture must stand
together, is the/claim, or both will be
demoralized.
* X X
Against the measure are the grain
specufatofs and exporters, whose op-
position is indorsed by Mr. .Iulius
Barnes. president of the United States
Chamber. of Commerce, and head of
the Government Grain Corporation
which/controlled grain shipments dur
Cing the war. The spectators are
sure that the bill will break them
and. by artificial methods in substitu-
ton of the commercial law of Supply
and demand, will demoralize business,
Chairman Marvin of the Tariff
Commission. looks askance upon the
plan of exporting all surplus of basic
Iarm products. He points out that
ordinarily. Improbable production
\rishts itself by driving the surplus
!Nroducers out of business. By putting
| an EN- mbargo on wheat, for instance, it
wNl De necessary to put an equal en-
barSo or prohibitive tariff upon all
wheat products. If the rule is applied
10 corn, the embargo must extend to
pork and livestock produced by feed
| ing corn; also upon all meat products
| he urges that instead of this artifi
ciaI marketing of farm products, the
ffarmers should diversity their crops
more than they are now doing and
voluntarily limit their production of
1 the stapies-advice which has been
given, more or less Intellectually, for
generations.
X \
In answer to the objections ad-
vanced by Chairman Marvin, the ad-
Vocates of the measure admit that
| one effect of overproduction at a loss
may be met by farmers leaving
, farms and fiocking to the industries
They even confirm that result by
pointing to 1,120,0o such desertions
or farms in 1922 and to 7.3 per cent of
habitable farmhouses standing va
cant, while the cities are having a
puliolng boom for demanded homes.
Farm bankruptcies cover IT per
cent of the farms of Montana. 10 !
per cent in North Dakota and 7'3 peI
cent in South Dakota. Similar statis-
tics apply to most other states Bank
failures in agricultural regions have
been greater in the first seven months
OF this fiscal year THAI the combined
failures for the five previous years.
X X
There are several bills offered for
farm relief through loans of money
to encourage diversification, but SEN
| atorial farm leaders say frankly that
the farmers are surfeited with credit;
what they want is profits which will
enable them to pay off the loans
! which they already have.
Advice to diversity ignores the
Limitation of climate and soil. Vol
! untary diversification would be "arti-
fetal reduction" of staples-just as
forced as is the proposed plan of or
ganized marketing abroad of what
ever excess appears in unhindered
production.
/ Exporting the surplus by govern
: ment organization is no more "artifi-
| cial," claim the farm leaders, than Is
| control of manufactures, through pro-
! tective tariff; besides, farm products
| are not, normally, on an import basis
hence are not protected as are manu-
| factures.
| The control of farm prices would
not be arbitrary. They would be gov
! erned by the index figures of the rise
and fall of prices for a decade on all
other staples in the home market
| iron, lumber, clothing, farm machin-
! erY freightS etc The a inn Is n in