The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-02-06
The New Farm Plan.
(NeW York TimeS)

The Times publishes this morning the text of the Administrations Farm Bill, devised as tempor- ary substitute for AAA It consists of series of amend ments to a comparatively obscure law known as the Soil Conservation Act adopted without much fanfare in April of last year. That earlier law declares itself to be the policy of Congress to prevent soil erosion and with this in view the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized ito carry out preventative measures nclud ing but not limited to- engineering operations meth ods of cultivation the growing of vegetation and changes in use of land.'
 The bill proposes to stiffen the backbone of the earlier law and to broaden the powers it confers Depletion of the soil and the improper use of it are now declared, obviously with watchfu eye on the Supreme Court to be matters affecting the national welfare" To prevent such practices, to maintain farm purchasing power and to assure prices fair to boh producers and the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to pay bountes benefits to farmers These bounties cannot Gin deference to the Supreme Courts recent decsion be based contracts binding upon the producer; but they are to be
 conditioned upon the maintenance by the pro-
 ducer of such acreage of erosion preventing or
 soil-improvement crops, or such acreage or
 production Of agricultural commodities deslg-
 mated by the Secretary or upon such utilization
 of land, the Secretary finds has tended to
 further the purposes of this act
 For the payment of these proposed bounties no funds provided in the present bill But under stood that separate request will be made for an appropriation of S440000000 Whether this will be borrowed raised through taxes has not been revealed Questioned this point, one of the members of the Senate Committee Agriculture replied: Ask MT. Morgenthau where the money is coming from"
 Two other questions raised by the introduction of the bill In what respects law does it differ from the act recently declared by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional? And in what respects policy, does it differ from AAA?
 The gist of the Supreme Courts opinion that the regulation of agricultural production is matter not within the power of Congress- and that by paying farmers to farm in certain way Congress was in effect coercing them in a field of action properly reserved to the States. Will the abandonment Of the contract system and the substitution for it system of payments to be made evidence that the farmer has complied with certain standards established by the Secretary of Agriculture, meet the courts ob- jection? Senator Norris said yesterday that he does not think it will The question will doubtless be raised in Congressional depae and in event of the adoption of the bill in its present form, be tested in the
 As for policy it is obvious that the bill retains several of the most important features of the old AAA-the bounty system the maintenance of a flair price and the control of production though this control is now made incidental to conservation. The chief point of difference between the old plan and the new is shift of emphasis from wholly negative to more positive action. Under AAA farmers were paid for not producing crops which the Government decided were not needed. The theory of the play is that payments would be made as reward for planting crops which, without adding to existing surplus would help to conserve the soil