Evening star., 1938-03-06
FARM ACT SEEKS
TOAD CONSUMER
New Law, Aimed at Price
Sterilization, Meets First
Test Tuesday.
By BLAIR BOLLES.

ny hLhAN DULLES.
With the aid of the 1888 Farm Act
the family-sized budget, often out of
balance and said to be the despair
Of housewives and the bane of their
husbands, in the future may approach
balance If Secretary Wallace realizes
his hopes that the law operate ac-
cording to advance administration
notices
For the consumer as we'll as the
farmer Is numbered among the bene-
flciaries of the new law, which meets
its first test Tuesday. Then cotton
growers and raisers of flue-cured
and dark tobacco will vote on whether
they want marketing quotas estab-
lished for their crops during the COM
ing year.
Later will come referenda among
wheat farmers and corn-hog farmers,
and in the way these men in distant
fields mark their ballots the urban
housewife and the members of her
family have large stake. The pur-
pose of the law is to promote greater
stability Of supply and price of farm
commodities, and a greater regularity
in production would mean greater
regularity in price at the corner
grocery store and butcher shop.
Hopes to Avoid Extremes.
Never again." Secretary Wallace
declared in extolling the law, should
the consumers of meat and producers
Of live stock suffer from price ex-
tremes like those that resulted from
the surpluses Of 1882, followed by the
feed shortages of 1884 and 1886
drought years.
If farmers can produce a steady
normal supply of hogs year after
year and sell them for a fairly stable
price, say around So a hundred, both
they and the consumer will be much
better off than if the supplies and
prices swing up and down as in the
pasta small supply one year at s13
a hundred and very large supply
another year at So hundred.
The high price makes consumers
angry, and millions Of people get out of
the habit Of eating meat, and they
can be brought back again only very
slowly when the prices go down."
Pork Big Item IN Budget.
The meat most people eat in the
United States is pork. The other
chief reliances of the pork eater are
potatoes and bread, often baked at
home.
Pigs eat corn, and pork prices rise
and fall with corn prices. So the
nf hn &c af ho
most important influences on the
houhehold budget.
A striking example of price variation
is the fall in pork chops from last
summer to the present. You can buy
pork chops today for 20 cents pound.
Six months ago. when the drought of
1886 was still reflected in the small
number of hogs, the price was A cents.
Wheat flour then was cents pound;
today it is 43 cents.
Uncertainty for Workers.
The consumer obviously would like
law which ended the most extreme
of these gyrations. But he hAS other
and less obvious interests in stabilized
farm supply If the worker Is regarded
as a consumer, meat-packing workers,
for instance. Louis H. Bean. economic
adviser to the Agricultural Adjustment
Administration, which has charge OF
the new law, pictures the uncertainty
which variations in corn and meat
supply hangs over the lives of these
workers.
The 1884 record drought" Mr..
Bean explained yesterday, cut the
corn crop and other feed crops almost
in half Farmers began to liquidate
their live stock, and this liquidation
lifted the cattle slaughter activity in
the packing industry from an index
level of 80 to l40.
This increase made it necessary
for the packing plants TO hire a lot
more help. But the next year the
activity in hogs was way below nor
NAL, 40 per cent down, and there was
a reduction of about Is per, cent in
cattle slaughter. which meant 2 re-
turn to more nearly normal IN the cav-
tle-packing business. The result was
that not only the 1894 temporary
employees, but many more packing
workers, were lald on.
Textile Workers Position Similar.
The position of the textile worker
is similar to that of the meat packer.
The instability Of the textile in
dustry.' Mr.. Bean said, sis in part
related to the instability of the cotton
crop and the price of cotton. If the
textile worker has steady employment,
he eats we'll and is a good consumer.
But when employment is uncertain,
he is a poor consumer.
When we have large cotton crop
in the ofing. the textile industry re-
stricts activity in order to take ad-
vantage of the price fall sure to come.
If there is prospect of curtailment of
the crop, there is sharp increase in
activity
The textile industry is one of the
countrys largest. Restricted activity
in it means lost jobs for thousands