AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
65 
I got the purport and foundation of it, was a sort of concession on 
your part to get the bill signed, when you left it optional with any 
cooperative or any number that might choose to come in under the 
fee. The question in my mind is whether they will ever choose to 
come in, as long as they have the stabilization fund back of them. 
I think my position is very clear, that this stabilization fund can 
never be maintained unless we do provide a fee to keep it going. 
Now, with that clause in it, as a matter of fact, it is questionable 
whether it will ever be invoked as long as there is anything left of 
the fund. 
Mr. Gray. Yes; it would be invoked. There is no doubt about 
that, because, as I have stated to the committee here several times, 
the experience that cooperators have had down to date, and the 
experience which they will get under these loaning sections, if they 
are ever tried out in disposing of a real surplus, will show them, 
after awhile, if not right now, that it is a good thing to keep away 
from for a cooperative to obligate itself to the Federal Treasury 
or to the Federal farm board and have to pay that money back. 
So experience would soon bring the cooperators to the point which 
I have suggested, and which is suggested in Senator McNary’s 
amendment in these words ‘‘because of the inability or unwillingness 
of the cooperative associations” to do this thing. 
I believe, and I feel sure, the cooperative soon would be unwilling 
to obligate themselves under the loaning section, on account of 
their known inability to make their obligations good, unless they 
would burst their organization in seeking todoso. So the cooperatives 
themselves would come to the point of view of having the Federal 
farm board go into the equalization operation. It will come, 
Congressman Adkins. The equalization plan will come 
Mr. Apkins. I agree with that. 
Mr. Gray. And it will come even with that section in there. It 
will come maybe a little bit later, as Congressman Prunell indicated 
a little while ago. It will come a little bit later than it would have 
come in the bill as it passed last year, but it will come, because the 
cooperatives are not going to try to bear that burden more than once. 
If they do it once they will never try it a second time. 
Mr. Apkins. You think if we impose the duty on this board of 
taking care of the surplus, with no restrictions on this board as to 
paying this sum back to the Federal Government if it is lost— 
and I am for that, as far as that is concerned— 
Mr. Gray (interposing). We are not. 
Mr. Apkins. Well, in the event it is lost, then I would not want to 
go back and give the power to anybody. This is an experiment any- 
how, and if the experiment loses this board has the power and au- 
thority and initiative to go ahead and undertake to stabilize any 
commodity, and if a loss occurs nobody pays it. We impose upon the 
board the duty of doing this, and if there is a loss, the board does 
not make anybody else pay it. The point I have in mind is the prac- 
ticability of this clause. That is the only thing I had in mind. as to 
whether it will ever be tried out. 
Mr. Gray. It will be tried out quite surely. 
Mr. Crark. Mr. Gray, may I ask a question. This bill, when 
stripped of everthing else, is a compulsory pooling bill, intended to 
take care of the commodity when the emereencyv arises.