292

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
shall be made only “when the prices are below or, except for such
purchases, may fall below the cost of production to efficient pro-
ducers.”

Now, the limitation that you have referred to, Doctor, in para-
graph (d) of section 10, as I read it as a matter of statutory construc-
tion, follows a clause. which relates to what shall happen after the
commodity has been purchased, not to the original act of purchase,
but after the act of purchase has been made.

Clause (d) relates to the safeguarding, conditioning, preserving,
and storing of the commodity after it is purchased; that is what (d)
refers to.

Now (e) comes along, the commodity being pruchased before you
reach it, and says that [reading]:

If every reasonable effort shall be exerted by the corporation to avoid losses
and to secure profits in resales—

In other words, is not that simply a limitation upon the price at
which the corporation shall sell after it has bought, and not a limita-
tion on the price at which it shall buy?

Mr. KiLcore. Let us read the first part of section 10.

Mr. Fort. The first part—I have it.

Mr. KiLcore. “The corporation receiving such advances’ ——

Mr. Fort. Yes.

Mr. Kirgore. “Shall make purchases of such commodity with the
proceeds thereof only.”

They shall only make purchases under those conditions.

Mr. Fort. And only when prices are or except for such purchases
may fall below the cost of production, only of those grades and quali-
ties the production of which is desirable; only so long as ensuing
production does not show increase in planting or breeding; only if
the commodity so purchased shall be properly conditioned, preserved,
stored, and safeguarded.

Necessarily, the selling must follow the purchase, must it not; that
can not come before the purchase, but must come after—only if after
the purchase, when you come to reselling it, because the word there
is “on resale.” Every reasonable effort shall be observed by the
corporations to “avoid losses’ and ‘“to secure profits.”

pai that is strengthened by the further limitation in that same
clause:

but the corporation shall not withhold any commodit i

f the pies thereof has become unduly enhanced, Pity re in ogo Gail Maret
Now, as I read that—and I think the people who have been the
proponents of this bill, if that language is not sufficiently clear, wor 2
have no objection to a clarification of the language to indicate 3
exactly what I mean; it means that after it has purchase oS
cotton, if it is buying cotton, the corporation must ondestor 0
operate at a profit and not proceed to dump the cotton at a op
Your proposal as to the reason for the equalization fee, instead of a
loan, as you said here a moment, ago, is that you contemplate opera-
tions looking toward losses? :

Mr. KiLgore. No; but with more possibilities of losses, so as to
stabilize the price at a more reasonable figure than it would be pos-
sible where you had to insure yourself practically, as under this,
from sustaining losses.