Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-18
FEDERAL FARM AID
BASED ON CROP CUT.
Government Wants Guaran-
tee Before Conserving to
Further Experiments.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

Out of the West has come the farm
problem In new and perplexing form
Ia demand for further Government
cooperation, which has been answered
by the Government with a demand for
more farmer cooperation.
The criticism. which has been made
Of the Federal farm act, McNary- Haul
geniSm and the export debenture plan
has had one common denominator-
namely, that any scheme for boosting
the price of farm products, simply
would lead to more planting and con-
tinued overproduction.
The Farm Board, through its. chair
man, has endeavored to preach curtatl-
ment of acreage-an unpopular doc
trtne, but one nevertheless that is re-
spected in a period of falling prices.
Coincident with these preachments have
come suggestions that the Government
itself begin to purchase the surplus
crop and hold it over year or send 1t
to China.
AS long as there is a possibility of the
Government finding customer for a
large part or the surplus officials here
feel that efforts to persuade the farmer
to curtail future production viii be fu-
tile.
New Viewpoint Forecast.
While reports from the West are that
the farmers did not take kindly to Sug-
gestions of reduced acreage, 1t is believ-
ed that when the co-operativeS really
understand that Government funds are
to be withheld next year If the warn
ings are disregarded, there will be a
different point of view IN the agricul-
tural States, and some progress toward
limiting the size of next years crop Will
then be made.
Industry has learned the importance
of adjusting supply to demand ana Just
now the whole industrial scheme is suf-
fering from loss of equilibrium or bal
ance between consumption and produc-
ton, but the process of adjustment is
going on without Government aid or
even expectation because organized bust
ness has learned the lesson.
What the Government now is trying
to do is to impress on the farmers,
through their organizations, that II
agriculture is to be on an equality with
industry, it will have to learn to con-
troll production in order to get
stabilized price. No matter what scheme
of farm relief. is proposed in the next
Congress as an alternative to the pres
ent plan, some guarantee Of controlled
production will be sought before the
administration will. ever consent to
further experiment in government aid.
The crux of the present situation,
however, is politics. The Western SEN
ators up for reelection must be ad-
vocating something besides laws of
economics-they must be pleading for
proposals designed to lift up the prices
of farm products Immediately. Every
body knows that Congress will not meet
again till December, hence the pressure
to have the administration, through the
Farm Board. spend another hundred
million dollars to stabilize the wheat
market.
But the administration is just as de-
terrnined that the farmers shall organ
ize their cooperative effort to keep
production from rising so high as to
cause an even further glut and drop
in values. In other works, the $780,
900 900 might be effective for a few
weeks, but when the stimulus had been
exhausted prices would be depressed
once more on account of the growing
surplus.
So that battle of words and theories
has resolved itself into. o. definite appeal
for more farmer cooperation before
even the present machinery OF the
Farm Board will function as. a stabii-
yer of farm prices. Nor is this unex-
pected, for the chairman of the Farm
Board, Alexander Legge, warned the
farm co-operatives year ago that Gov
eminent funds were extended only on
the condition that production would
this year be reduced.
tCopyright, 1900