490

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
Mr. Caverno. Have they ever thought how the maximum law of
supply and demand price can be determined? :

Mr. Fort. I am not asking you that. I am asking you who is to
carry it. You say the farmer 1s to carry it. If the cooperative has
bought it with this borrowed money, who is carrying it?

Mr. CaverNo. 1 say, when the farmer has paid the equalization
fee—all those equalization fees put together carry the surplus then
for every farmer. ’

Mr. Fort. He has contributed the fund to carry it, but he is not
carrying it?

Mr. Caverno. He actually owns it.

Mr. Fort. The farmer gets no profit on the operation. If the
cooperatives make a profit, who gets the profit?

Mr. CaverNo. There would not be any profit on the operation.

Mr. Fort. Why not?

Mr. CaverNoO. The design of the operation should be not to make

rofit.

Nr. Fort. There is going to be some profit, or some depreciation,
is there not?

Mr. CaveErno. Not if this bill works right.

Mr. Fort. You mean they are going to work it so they are going
to get exactly the same amount in dollars and cents for 16,000,000
bales of cotton if they buy that much as they paid for it?

Mr. CaverNo. I was not figuring on buying; I was figuring on
what the farmers were going to get.

Mr. Fort. I am asking you this question: Whoever buys the cotton,
how are they going to work it, if you know?

Mr. CaveErNo. There would be no profit or loss if it works ideally

Mr. Fort. Ideally, but are they going to work it practically?

Mr. Caverno. They are; yes.

Mr. Fort. Practically?

Mr. CaveErNo. Yes. If they make a profit they have paid too
low a price.

Mr. Fort. I do not think the millenium is here.

Mr. CaveErNo. That is not the millenium; that is a perfectly
feasible business transaction.

Mr. Fort. That they should just break even in buying two or
three million bales of cotton?

Mr. Caverno. If they should get the price too high they could
correct the difference from a fund which they have already collected.

Mr. Forr. Please listen to what I ask you. I asked you if the
cooperatives, with the money out of the equalization fee, bought
2,000,000 bales of cotton and subsequently sold it, who gets the
profit on that operation, if they make a profit?

Mr. Caverno. It is not designed that the cooperative——

Mr. Fort. If they do make a profit, who gets it.

Mr. Caverno. If anybody makes a profit, they make a profit.
Mr. Fort. Who? The cooperative, does it not?
Mr. CaveErNo. Yes.
Mr. Fort. All right. Then, the individual farmer, who is not
carrying, the surplus——
r. CAvERNoO. If they make a profit the i f some-
body. Who do they make it out of? y make it out o
a Fort. They make it out of the farmer and with his own

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