$48

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
Mr. KiLgore. Precisely——

Mr. Fort. What happens to it?

Mr. KiLGorE. Precisely this way: With the loan bill you would
have the possible price on the crop that is going to be produced next
year as the deterrent on production. Let us grant we have operated
one year. We have a surplus on hand. The farmer does not own
that surplus. The deterrent there would be the lower price that he
would get if he went on and produced a larger crop next year under
the loan bill. That would be the one deterrent—the loss on a bigger
crop if he produced it.

With the equalization fee he would have that same possible loss
on the larger crop that he produces; he would have a loss on the sur-
plus that was taken out of the previous crop and which he owns,
because of having bought it through his equalization fee or guaran-
teed any losses through his equalization fee—he would have that
additional deterrent—and then he would have the possibility of
another and larger equalization fee. So under the loan bill you
would have one deterrent on production; under the equalization fee
you would have three deterrents on production.

Let me follow this just a little bit further. It was stated here the
other day by a member of the committee that the experience in his
section, where piece-meal work was given out at a higher price to
speed up production during the war, that it did not result in increased
production or increased hours. But the increase in the price that
they got for labor caused the laborers to work fewer days or hours.
By the increased price or lifting up of the price of their labor they got
sufficient for taking care of their standards of living by that elevated
price.

Now and then in the South we run up with this matter in this
way. When we get a low price we will have to plant more cotton—
in order to get sufficient money to take care of a standard of living.
A few years ago—not very far back—laborers worked 12 hours a
day. When they were paid more per hour they reduced their hours
down to 10. Then to 8, as the Government in the case of railroad
labor did. Labor got more per hour and as a whole when it came
down to 10 hours and then to 8 hours, than it did for 12 hours.
Labor does not work more hours with higher prices. Some think
now, and some industries think that labor ought to work 6 hours a
day so that they will have enough to take care of their standards of
living and not produce too much.

The thought I am coming to is just this. With the higher prices
for labor, the stabilization of labor at increased prices takes care of
their needs for a living standard. They have not gone on ‘and in-
creased their hours of labor and their production. because they got
higher prices.

Let me apply this here in two other thoughts: In 1913, 1914, and
1915, just before the war, the average production of wheat was
893,000,000 bushels. It brought an average of 90 cents. During the
five years just following—1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920—wheat
brought $1.84, or twice as much as it did in the three previous years.
The average production was 779,000,000 bushels, or a hundred mil-
Hon Bustuls less under the higher price than it was under the low