Evening star., 1933-01-08

"A OF dong something draStlc 1Or
4 4 American agriculture. Fifteen
years of ceaseless efforts in
Congress and 2,000,000000 from the
Federal Treasury have failed to solve
the farmers problem. He remains to-
day at the bottom of the economic pit.
Moreover, he is $4,000 600, 900 in debt.
The conviction that his purchasing
power must be restored if there is to be
real economic recovery has made many
urban creditors his allies before Con-
gress. Sentiment for effective farm re-
lief has never been stronger.
The new political season opens with
the voluntary domestic allotment plan
taking the center of the stage and over
shadowing the equalization fee and the
export debenture ideas. Whether or not
this specific plan is adopted, something
on that order is likely to go into the
statute books within the next year. Even
the equalization fee plan was strong
enough to pass both Houses of Congress
twice, if only to meet the presidential
veto. The allotment principle has be-
hind 1t virtually all the support the
equalization fee had. and in addition it
has the support of the President-elect.
organized labor and outstanding business
men. Its leading sponsors conStrue it to
fit the Democratic and Republican ma
tional platforms, especially the Demo-
cratic. And If ever the time was ripe for
national farm relief program, it is now,
in the midst of the depression, when
everybody is looking for a way out and
the will to try remedies Is strong.
While this does not discount the
skepticism about the allotment plan in
the Hoover administration and in high
places in the financial world, the efforts
Of ire nOrOnpntc RI head II off rpf1ePf
in themselves the strength the plan had
developed as the time approaches for
the new deal" which the Nation or
dered in November.
Designed to Increase Incomes.
Upon the word of its sponsors here
is a plan designed to meet every vital
defect of the earlier ill-fated schemes
and to give boost to agriculture and
to business generally by pouring $780,
900, 900 to 81 ,000, 900 900 of new" money
into the farm belt each year. 1t would,
they say, make tariff protection effective
on the domestic consumption of farm
products of which there is an eXportablG
surplus. It would increase the incomes
of farmers without increasing produc-
ton. 1t would enable the farmers, like
manufacturers, to adjust production to
demand. Yet, sponsors of the plan con-
tend, there would be no export dump
ing. with its dangers of reprisals Or re-
taliation from abroad; no price-fxing,
no interference with existing marketing
agencies, no compulsion on farmers, no
injury to consumers, no new Federal
appropriation nor additional Treasury
expense and no dictation from Wash
ington.
1t sounds like Gov. Roosevelt's To-
peka speech Of the presidential cam
paign. To the skeptics, its promises are
too good to be true. All the farm plans
heretofore proposed have amounted to
bounties encouraging farmers TO increase
production. BY falling to control pro-
duction they have left the tariff inef-
fective as to large surplus crops. The
original objective of the domestic cllot-
ment plan, therefore. was to pay the
farmer the amount of the tariff on the
dcmestically consumed portion Of his
crop in return for his agreement to limit
production, and thus help hold down
the depressing surplus.
That Is to say, the farmer would re-
ceive, as now, the prevailing market
price on his whole crop, plus bounty
on that portion of it which was con-
Sumed by human beings in this country
The bounty would be, roughly, the
amount of the tariff on such products.
With about 60 per cent of the Ameri-
can-grown wheat thus consumed here.
! and the tariff at ~ cents a bushel. the
farmer would receive bounty OF ~
cents bushel on go per cent of the
! wheat he raised. The percentage
would fiuctuate as production fell or
| increased. The bounty on cotton and
| tobacco would not be more than B
! oh
on finished products. One-half cent
pound would be paid on rice. 2 cents
pound on hogs, and SO on down the
list but with the experiment limited
at first to wheat, cotton, corn (tnclud-
ing corn in the form of hogs) and to-
bacco.
Original Objective Changed.
This is the underlying principle, In
the evolution Of the plan, the original
objective" has been changed The
| proposed bounty is no longer the
amount of the tariff. Under the latest
| plan. the first on which all the farm
organizations have united, the bounty
would be the amount necessary TO give
a farm product its pre-War exchange
value. That is to say, the bounty would
be the difference between the products s
current market price and the pre-war
price, with seme variation to cover
changes in the cost Of things the farmer
has TO buy In case OF wheat, the
average price between 1910 and 1914
was 80 cents. Adding Z per cent
equalization adjustment to that, the
aim would be to give the wheat farmer
80 cents q bushei for his wheat next
year. Assuming the market price we're
40 cents a bushel when the plan went
into effect, the bounty, then, would be
SO cents bushel. With the tarin as