Evening star., 1934-10-28

and If the consequent rise In price II
greater than the reduction In output
you are better on.
If this could be managed by mere
suggestion, 1t might be fine thing
Even this Is not certain. But 1t can
not be done by suggestion. You will
recall the reign of terror in the to-
bacco regions in the might rider days
The hard-pressed tobacco producers
thought they would reduce output by
voluntary restriction. What they got
was terrorism. arson, murder and eco
nomic loss. You certainly remember
the egregious failure of the Farm
Boards scheme to maintain cotton
prices by withdrawing supplies from
the market.
No scheme for restricting produc-
ton by persuasion has been devised or
will be. To get results you must use
some material force. Every crop re-
duction scheme that has done any re-
ducing has required either bribery or
taxation or suppression by force. The
A. A. A. and the Bankhead act man
age to employ all three. First they
pay the farmer to reduce acreage or
destroy cotton; then they tax the
American people, including the South
erners, to pay for these gifts, and then
they establish q punitive tax on the
farmers who produce more than the
scheme calls for.
There is no denying the fact that
cotton has gone up in price since 1888
So has everything else. How much OF
this increase has come from the
A. A. A. no man can say.
A part of the rise is undoubtedly due
to that recovery which is taking place
everywhere, although somewhat more
rapidly in countries not enjoying q
New Deal. A part of the rise is un-
doubtedly due to the debasement of
the American dollar in foreign mar
kets. A part is due to the decrease
in production, forced by depression,
which the farmers have brought about
quite independently Of the A. A. A.
When the depression came in 1920
the South very promptly dropped the
production from 100000 bales to
10000 bales. If the foolish Farm
Board policy had never been and the
A. A. A. had never been thought of,
the Southern farmers very probably
would have, long before this, solved the
problem of overproduction, as they
have in every depression in our his
tory.
Whatever is left of the price rise
after these deductions is undoubtedly
due to restriction of production due to
the A. A. A. and the Bankhead law.
Whether we have gained or lost by the
transaction is beyond determination
We produced 13,000,0 900 bales last year
and sold 1t at about 9 cents. If we
produce 10,000,0 900 bales this year and
it sells for Is cents, there is ma
terial difference in total returns, to be
ascribed to all the various causes al
ready enumerated.
Deduction From Profit.
There are some heavy deductions
from this profit There is first the
direct levy on the whole country to
pay for the cash gifts, options, rentals,
processing taxes and other prizes In
the Governments great gift package
for the farmers. Then there is the
rising cost the whole country pays for
every commodity containing cotton.
There are quite number of such COM
These are the immediate costs.
There are some remote costs. Reduc-
ton of output throws men out of work.
Tenants, field workers, pickers, gin
ners, the banks, the railways, on
through the long economic chain of
men who sell and handle cotton-all
these lose work. The reduction in
acres is naturally in the poorer mar
ginal areas, and these require propor-
to the output a larger num-
ber of workers. What relation there Is
between the restriction of cotton and
the enormous outlays for relief in the
Southern States is Understandable. 1t
must be freely admitted that If the
A. A. A. has actually brought more
money into the South than it other
wise could have obtained, the South
as whole has benefited. But it is
equally true that If the benefits have
gone chiefly to group of owners of
the superior lands, the workers to
some extent have gone on the dole.
Some Of the withdrawn acres are
converted to the production of food
and food stuffs and animals. The i'm
result is to intensity the de-
preston in the Northern grain and
animal areas. This calls for more re-
lief in that territory, and we have a
new game of economic g-around-
the-rosy, with the cotton A. A. A. re-
quiring further development of the
A. A. A. for wheat, corn and hogs,
with rising costs and reduced con-
and bigger deficits in one
grand demonstration that there is
more in this situation than was ever
dreamed of in the philosophy Of eco
nomic planners.
Cost Of Market Losses.
And then there is the final cost in
the loss of our cotton markets. There
are 70 countries that grow cotton,
and small number that grow a great
deal. For many years we have grown
not far from an average Of $4,000 900
bales, the rest of the world about TO-
100000. Last season we produced
about half of the world crop of some
Thing over 25,000,0o0. This season,
while We are growing 100000 bales,
DUR rivals are producing somewhere
between 100000 and 100000
bales. The economic meddlers have
finally managed to destroy our COM
mand Of the world market in our
greatest export commodity. This is
Just what happened to us in the Civil
War. We recovered from the Civil
War after while. Whether we can
recover from the A. A. A. Is another
matter.
In any event, our Government is
Santa Claus over a much wider area
than was originally intended. We
present today the slightly ludicrous
spectacle of nation straining its re-
iuced resources to raise cotton prices
and increase cotton markets for every
cotton growing country in the world.
The press reports that our Undersec-
'etary of Agriculture is in Europe to
ind out what other countries are do
ng and thinking about agriculture.
He will find out that they are not do
ng what this country is doing. If he
inde ont u,hct fhey ora fbipkino ho