AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

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Commencing several years ago, remarking somewhat upon the
evolutionary growth of the farm-relief idea, this committee considered
that the surplus was not the question. The fundamental objective
varied in the different farm relief bills back yonder; but every farm
relief bill now, which is presented, including the one I am talking
about, confesses that the surplus is the question.

I want to call attention to the evolutionary progress made in farm
relief. We have gone from a position several years ago, where in
farm relief, we were talking about various ideas of relief, to the position
where we are talking now about the same idea; namely, surplus
disposition and control. This is true, whether the bill is the one we
are talking about now or any of the others which have come before
this committee.

Another point we have progressed along is that in years past, those
bills which have carried the equalization principle had different
methods for putting that principle into operation. In the first
bills carrying the equalization principle the fee was assessed directly
on the producer and any residue of the fee, after an operation period
had concluded, was allocated back to the producer. That condition
in the bills prior to this one gave rise to lots of discussion, much
controversy, and a great deal of misunderstanding about the equal-
ization plan for disposing of surpluses. We have elvolved, we have
progressed, if I may use that latter word, to the point where, in the
present bill, the individual producer, so far as the equalization fee is
concerned, does not come into contact with the fee, except that he
gets the benefit from the stabilization and perhaps a slight hightening
of the market price of the commodity which he gets for his product.

In this bill, about which I am speaking, the producer, whether he
is marketing cotton; peanuts, or what not, does not pay the equali-
zation fee; he does not get back as a residue any amount of money
which might be left in the stabilization fund after marketing, or after
the operation period has been concluded. That is perhaps a part of
the progress which has been made and which did not exist in the
former bills.

Let it be definitely understood that the equalization plan in this
bill does not collect this fee from the individual producer. The
equalization fee, or the fee left after the period of operation is con-
cluded, does not go back to the individual producer, but the fee is
collected from the commodity at the most convenient point where
that commodity flows through the direct channels of commerce of
our country, and if any residue is left in a particular stabilization
fund, that residue is retained by the Federal Farm Board for use in a
subsequent operation period of the same commodity.

Another progress or another point of evolution which farm relief
has gone through is that several years ago farm relief was started on
account of a wheat situation in the Pacific Northwest. It was an
emergency situation which the farm relief bills in those States sought
to cure. Sometime later the emergency situation removed into the
mid-West with referemce to corn, there being an emergency situation
in the production of corn. The producers thereof were desperately
situated, and the bills at that time were spoken of as a temporary
way of meeting this emergency situation. .

Some time later, an emergency situation appeared with reference
to cotton, either in an overproduction or at least, if not that, a large