Evening star., 1933-02-20
|SENATE GROUP 0. K.|
| ALLOTMENT PLAN
Agriculture Committee Says
Normal Economic Curative
Reactions" Inadequate.
BY the Associated Press.


In a formal report to the Senate to-
day on the domestic allotment farm re-
lief bill, the Agriculture Committee said
the situation in agriculture is now sc
serious that we cannot rely on normal
economic curative reactions"
The present bill will aid in bringing
about a better balance in national pur-
chasing power" said the report, pre-
pared by Senator Frazier Republican,
OF North Dakota. will result in a re-
duction of the number of unemployed
Will aid in establishing the purchas-
ing power of labor and other con-
sumers, as well as of agriculture. and
VIII help to meet the present national
emergency"
A favorable report on the far-reach-
ing measure passed by the House was
voted last week by the Senate Agricul-
lure committee, IL to f. Changes in
cluded elimination of hogs, tobacco
dairy products, rice and peanuts, con-
inning the bill to wheat and cotton, and
the striking out of all provisions for
controlling acreage.
Measure Is Experimental"
1t Is recognized that the measure Is
experimental in that it operates upor
principles which, thought believed tt
De sound, have not been tried before
In Federal legislation" said the report
In view OF this the committee be-
lleves that it is desirable to put the
measure into operation in a manner
involving a minimum of complexity
Later, II experience warrants it, tht
measure may be enlarged and extended
1t seems to the committee that the
Dill as 1t passed the House was toe
complicated and included too many
commodities to permit of its successful
operation, especially for the present
year, and the amendments made by
the committee have for their purpose
primarily, the simplification of the
bill"
Criticize Shannon Group.
Meantime, sharply worded letter
was addressed to Congress yesterday by
the heads of ID farm organizations In
criticism of the Shannon Committee's
recent recommendations for RESTRICTING
activities of the Farm Board.
The House Committee headed by
Representative Shannon, Democrat, OF
Missouri, made broad investigation
Of Government competition with busi-
ness
In its report on farm aspects of the
inquiry, it recommended cessation of all
Stabilization activities of the Farm
Board, stricter supervision of co-opera-
tives, provision that co-operatiyes may
buy only from member producers, and
the requirement that loans be made to
private middlement on the same terms
as to co-operatives.
I'VE are amazed that committee of
the House of Representatives should
expose its lack of appreciation and un-
derStanding of farm welfare as COM
pletely as does the so-called Shannon
Committee in that portion of its report
which deals with the Farm Board" the
letter said.
The letter said the comnittee's
recommendations reveal a distressing
bias in favor of class of private farm
product dealers who for generations
have assumed they possessed some sort
of inalienable right to buy as cheaply
as possible from producers and to sell
as dearly as possible to consumers,
even though producers desire to re-
serve to themselves the right to form
their own handling agencies.
"Affront to Congress"
THE committees proposals 20 do
away, In period of great agricultural
distress, with any of the advantages
now enjoyed by farmers under the agri-
cultural marketing act not only consti-
tute an insidious thrust at rural well
fare but, we believe, are also an affront
to the intelligence of Congress
I'VE invite your consideration to the
fact that the committee does not
recommend abolition of the Farm Board
nor repeal Of the agricultural marketing
act but instead has confined itself to
suggestions for rendering the market
ing act unuorkable ard the co-opera-
tives iTpotent.
IF Farm Board credit is to be de-
MED co-operatives, why should not loans
and subsidies be denied to all private
business agencies by abolition of the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
and by abolition of the preference
given industry by the tariff system?"