AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
crop sold for $300,000,000 less than the 14,000,000-bale crop would
have sold for.

Mr. Fort. It should, should it not?

Mr. Caverno. No.

Mr. Fort. How much did this 2,000,000 bales additional—from
14,000,000 to 16,000,000—how much economic difference was there?

Mr. Caverno. Under no circumstances is 16,000,000 bales worth
less by $300,000,000 than 14,000,000. It may not bring it, but it is
worth it.

Mr. Fort. You are correct. I misunderstood you.

Mr. Caverno. Let us look at that. There are a million bales of
cotton which might have been used in place of jute bagging. It is
not used ordinarily because of the fact that the price of cotton is too
high. But there are 2,000,000 bales of cotton which brought
$300,000,000 less than nothing.

Mr. Fort. Because of inability to carry?

Mer. CavernNo. Because of inability to carry; yes. Now, suppose
that verybody who produced a bale of cotton had ‘chipped’ in
to a fund by which the board or people under the direction of the
board, could have bought 2,000,000 bales of low-grade cotton and
sold it for 1 cent, 2 cents, 3 cents, 4 cents, or 5 cents, or whatever it
would bring in an ordinary noncompetitive market. If they had
burned that 2,000,000 bales of cotton in the public squares of the
South the price would have come up on the balance of the crop
$300,000,000.

Mr. Fort. Possibly.

Mr. Caverno. Not possibly but certainly. Merely holding it off
of the market would not produce that result, but converting it into
jute bagging would. There are bills before Congress to put a tariff
on jute and jute fabrics. I do not think that is the best way to meet
this situation. I think that should be left so that the surplus of the
cotton crop, the low grades, could be used to compete with jute
whenever that operation would make the total crop worth the most;
in other words, in the case of the 1925 crop there are $300,000,000 to
be added on the 14,000,000 bales as soon as we can get rid of the
2,000,000 bales.

Mr. Fort. Then you believe that Government money or money
raised under the Government machinery should be used to compete
with the jute industry?

Mr. Caverno. Well, they dammed steel out of the American
market and I do not know why they should not dam jute out of it.

Mr. Fort. I am not talking tariff. You want to process cotton?

Mr. Caverno. Jute is a foreign product.

Mr. Fort. And you want to process cotton?

Mr. CaverNo. Jute is a foreign product. We have treated every
foreign industry as not under our protective system.

Mr. Fort. I am talking about processing. Do you want t process
under your bill?

Mr. CaveErno. Process what?

Mr. Fort. Why, cotton.

Mr. Caverno. Why, sure, we want to process it. You mean the
board?

Mr. Fort. Yes.

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