AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

363

are actually exported, but would prevail with regard to the other
anits as well, because it would be essential that the competition of
the exporters be met. oo

By that I am not willing to say that leadership in price move-
ments is always on the Liverpool side. I think that the researches
of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America have
definitely shown, as many of us have long known from other studies,
that the leadership is sometimes in American markets and sometimes
on the Liverpool side. But, taking the run of the year and taking
the run of the several years, I think that Mr. Kincheloe’s question
of yesterday can be answered by saying that certainly during three-
fourths of the time, or, let us say, with a relation of 75 or 80 per cent,
the Liverpool market in the case of wheat and in the case of cotton
1s essentially the market from which we have to derive our prices
m the United States by a deduction corresponding very clearly to
the buying margin of the exporters.

Mr. KincuELOE. And in view of the fact that one exporter could
not pay much more for wheat than the other. could he?

Mr. Stewart. Not much.

Mr. KincHELOE. They all have to sell at the same market at the
same price ?

Mr. Stewart. Exactly. Now, then, if that is the case an export
premium in the sum, let us say, of $42.000,000 at the rate of 21 cents
a bushel in the case of wheat, should result in raising the price
ipproximately 21 cents a bushel, not only on the 200,000,000 bushels
that go abroad, but on the balance of the wheat as well. approxi-
mating. therefore, $168,000.000.

It is because of this fact that these exportable surpluses can be
ised as fulerums so that with the leverage on an export premium
vou can raise prices to all producers in the United States. It is
because of that fact that I have been interested to see to it that some
attention was given to the experience of the other countries and to
che possibilities in this country. I had hoped that the case for
agriculture would not be lost through lack of available knowledge
as to the way the thing has been done by some other countries when
they faced something like similar emergencies.

Mr. AsweLL. What other countries besides Germany ?

Mr. Stewart. England has applied the idea of export bounty.

Mr. AswerLL. They do not have that now?

Mr. Stewart. It was in 1673, in February. that a measure was
passed by the Cavalier Parliament under Charles II. It was in
effect for five years, and was then discontinued. but was taken up
when the Whigs came into control under William and Mary in 1689.
They re-enacted exactly the same measure, declaring in the preamble
that experience has shown that when there was an exportable sur-
plus of the three commodities in question—wheat, barley and rve—
that the export bounty was a benefit not only to the land interests
but to the whole trade of the realm. That remained on the statute
books until 1815.

The thing, of course, that happened in England during that time was
‘hat through the growth of population and the coming in of indus-
Iries, as a result of the industrial revolution, the exportable sur-
pluses ceased to be part of the picture. As a matter of fact. about