Evening star., 1928-03-31

Now the farmers are going to be re-
lievcd Next Monday the McNary-
Haugen farm relief bill. instead of oil
will be discussed in the Senate.
It has been five years since farm dis
tresS first appealed to Congress for re
lief. attempts at "sOcializing the GovS
ernment" III order to bring that de-
sired Surcea5e Of farm sorrow were four
times rejected by Congress and then
vetoed by President Coolidge on the
ground OF the alleged uncOnStitution-
atty OF the measure as ruled by the
Attorney General The hackers Of the
present measure affirm that ii meets
the objections of the President al
though it retains the principle of So
called equalization" which the Attor-
ney General held was. in effect "depriy-
ing person Of property without due
process OF law Is there another veto
in the otlng or Is there a solution at
last Of the greatly debated problem II
how To restore agriculture 20 norma!
prosperity All candidates for the pres
idency are anXl0uSly awaiting the
answer.
The first bill for this purpose was
introduced In the first session OF the
resentauVe Haugen. 1t Centered around
what was known as the ratio price
That meant that a Government cor
poratlon was 10 ascertain. from time
To time, the comparative purchasing
power OF farm products as measured
In other commodities and II that ratio
was found 20 be less than It had been
prior 10 the World War. then that Fed
eral corporation was to buy and store
or export enough Of the farm product
10 make sufficient scarcity 20 cause a
rise in its value IN its purchasing
power In the home market The Law
OF supply and demand was 10 bc put
into force artif!cially, by either holding
III storage the withdrawn farm prod
ucts or selling abroad az whatever the
world market would pay capitalization
and losses 10 be at the expense OF the
Federal Treasury. As imports of farm
products are handicapped by protective
tariff. that tariff would prevent foreign
grain, cotton. live stock, etc, from our
markets, and SO the process was called
making the farm tariff effective"
No tariff prevents imports 50 long as
we already have n surplus % hand. for
that surplus above home needs. III seek
ing an outlet must accept world mar
ket prices. and that fixes The home
market prices alSo-~at least IN theory.
But when We hold no surplus. and bar
the world from creating an oycrSGpp,y
IN our own market. we may run the
prices up somewhat Frequently the
Minneapolis -four mills have paid more
for wheat right In The greatest primary
grain market OF the world than lt
would bring IN Liverpool after adding
the freight across the ocean. but the
Liverpool wheat could not compete here
because OF oUr protective tariff on wheat
Much more emphatic has been she
tariff against imports of Canadian
wheat Bur this is not uniformly the
case with farm surplus crops
Nevertheless, that first Aaugen bin
10 tX prices according % the puychAS-
ing ratio of farm products before the
war was voted down in the HOUSE 22S
nays. lao yeas
In the same session the same meas
ure Was introduced N The senate 10y
Senator MCNary and ~ It became
known a. the McNary- Hauseu bill but
it never even reached vote In tlc
senate The Senate strongly opposed
the principle OF priee-nNlng by the
ratio"