AGRICULTURAL RELIEF Mr. Morgan. I have always been rather afraid of fixing the price on any commodity. Mr. KercuaM. There is no fixing of the price involved in the idea some of the rest of us are somewhat interested in; there is no price fixing in 1t whatsoever. We are interested in a better price, and if a better price is not what is aimed at by all the people who are ap- pearing here in connection with farm relief legislation, of course, then, I have misunderstood them. It is an effort to put the farmer in this picture that has been drawn here so vividly of the special privileges in price matters which have been given to other of our olks. Mr. Morgan. Our idea is that anything that is done should be done in such a way that the farmer will handle his own business. i can tell you in a few words just how this McNary-Haugen bill will operate for our dark tobacco. Our normal crop 1s 250,000,000 pounds. If we have a normal crop, we get out of that 250,000,000 pounds about 50,000,000 pounds that is hard to sell. It will be bought mostly by speculators and gradually sold out. And so the surplus will be about 50,000,000 pounds. We, of course, will meet with the board here at Washington and determine what the equalization fee is to be, and in my opinion for a normal crop 1 cent a pound would be sufficient. If it were 1 cent a pound it would not cost anything, the way we look at it, to collect the fee. Every buyer of tobacco is registered and numbered, and has to make a report to the Treasury Department every month showing the number of pounds of tobacco he bought that month and the kind he bought. Under this bill he would merely write his check for 1 cent a pound for all the tobacco he bought, and send that to the Treasury along with his report, and that in turn would be sent over to the board. The association would, of course, pay over 1 cent a pound for the tobacco they received. So at the end of the operating period for that year you would have from your 1 cent a pound $2,500,000 collected without setting up any new machinery or em- ploying new men, or at a dime’s cost to anybody. Mr. ANDrESEN. The proposition is that the buyer shall pay, not the producer? Mr. Morgan. Ther je wr much easier to dc is already set up. Mr. ANDRESEN. production? Mr. Morgan. I au not know that it would affect production. Mr. ANDRESEN. One claim in connection with the equalization fee is that it is calculated to cut down production. Mr. Morgan. Oh, if you increase production you would have to increase the fee to 2 or 3 cents. The amount would be determined by the size of the crop. Mr. Apkins. The farmer will soon learn about that. Mr. Morean. Yes; the farmer will soon find out about that. Under this bill we would have this 50,000 pounds surplus. We would meet with the board to determine a fair price. A fair price under normal times would be about 10 cents a pound for the kind of tobacco that we know will be left over. We can sell all of our wrap- pers, all of our high-grade leaf and snuff tobacco and all of the trash.