AGRICULTURAL MARKETING REVOLVING FUND } 31
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some here prepared to go into all the various phases of it. We will
be glad, however, to furnish any information within our power, or
to answer any questions you may desire to put to us.
Mr. Byrxs, Do I understand that the fundamental cause of the
condition which you describe is the fact that there is a large
quantity of cotton in storage, which you say is serving to depress
the market?
Mr. Parker. The effect of that storage is this, that there are
several million bales of cotton concentrated in the hands of the
board. That cotton may come out at any time, and may not only
depress the price of cotton which the spinner has already paid for,
but may depress the price of goods that he has not yet manufac-
tured. “Consequently, he says, * Why buy cotton in advance; why
toad up with cotton so long as this state of affairs exists.”
We have before us a wonderful illustration of this situation in the
valorization scheme of Brazil. = I believe you gentlemen were told a
year or so ago about the wonderful success of this scheme, but since
that time it has collapsed. Now, here is what happened: The Bra-
zilian Government was able to control the planting of coffee trees in
Brazil. They could say to every single coffee producer in Brazil,
“You can plant only one tree, only two trees, or only a dozen trees
a year.” The Brazilian Government could say that to its own coffee
producers, but it could not control the number of trees planted in
Costa Rica, in Panama, in Mexico, or Guatemala. Now, so long as
they had that control through the valorization of coffee in Brazil,
It gave an impetus to people to go and produce coffee outside of
Brazil. So when the show-down came, not a great while ago, they
found that they were not in a position to control the market, and
for that reason the coffee valorization scheme in Brazil has failed.
Brazil is not now attempting to do anything more than merely to
sontrol the supply of coffee available for the world, but they do not
in any way interfere with the enormous marketing and financing
machinery for coffee. i
They are leaving all that machinery untouched, so that the buyers
and sellers of coffee are still able to function normally, and to
conform to the reduced supplies that are released by the Govern-
ment. Now, we cannot attempt to control either our domestic or
foreign supply of cotton, and the effect of what we have done, as
we see it, is that it has restrained our normal purchasing power, or
the normal purchasing power of the trade in cotton. It has been
long established and it har been functioning with its warehouses
and financial power. What we have done has served to restrain
this buying power, and it is not now picking up cotton as it would
normally do.
Mr. Byrxs. I come from a part of Tennessee that does not produce
otton.
Mr. Parker. I am from Tennessee, myself.
_ Mr. Byrws. I know you are. I am from the middle part of the
State, where they do not produce cotton, and I do not know much
about the subject. Of course, the cooperatives are holding this cot-
ton with a view to taking it off the market and securing 2 better
price for the cotton grower. I do not know whether they are justi-
fied in that or not. I do not know about that: but T was wondering
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