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1

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
Mr. AnpErsoN. Mr. Chairman, one is tempted in discussing a
question which involves so many complex and difficult economical
and psychological factors, to deal in philosophy and in abstractions
and generalizations of one kind and another.

I want to avoid that so far as I can, and I am going to try to avoid
being drawn into that kind of discussion.

It has been stated before this committee several times that the
bariff on wheat is not effective. I do not wish to argue that question,
but I would like the permission of the committee to insert at the end
of my remarks a series of tabulations which I think show the extent
to which it has been effective upon various classes of wheat. These
tables I think speak for themselves, and I would much prefer they
should do so rather than to attempt to argue them.

The CrATRMAN. You desire to put them in the record?

Mr. AxpErsoN. If I may.

The CrairmaN. Without objection it is ordered.

(The tables referred to will be found at the conclusion of Mr.
Anderson’s statement.)

Mr. ANxpersoN. I have agreed with much that Mr. Wallace has
said, although I do not agree with his ultimate conclusion that the
bill now before you is the answer to the economic situations which he
so well portrays.

I would like to call the attention of the committee to one thing,
however, and that is that while the ability of the consumer to use
and to buy industrial products, such as radios, automobiles, and
various other products is limited by his buying capacity, his ability
to utilize food is limited by the capacity of his stomach. And there-
fore you have a factor in this buying-power question, in the volume
of the market for food, which is not altogether comparable with the
purchasing-power factor which is involved in the purchasing of radios,
automobiles and other industrial products, the use of which is not
limited by the capacity of the human stomach.

So much by way of preliminary.

Mr. Fort. You also have an irreducible minimum on that, Mr.
Anderson, on the purchase of fond which vou do not have on auto-
mobiles.

Mr. ANDERSON. Generally speaking; certainly, in stable commod-
ities the consumption is a fairly stable factor both up and down.

Mr. Kercaam. Have you any figures or can you give any general
statement that would indicate just about what the degrees of varia-
tion is between the irreducible minimum and the maximum capacity
that you refere to?

Mr. AnpERsoN. I have confined myself so far to something I know
something about, I think. We find that while there has been in
wheat flour a very marked decline in consumption since 1890, that
decline is apparently arrested and the domestic consumption is appar-
ently a stable factor and varies very little from year to year, and
varies very little with economic conditions.

Mr. KINCHELOE. You meant the per capita consumption?

. Mr. ANDERSON. Yes; the per capita consumption. I think we have
in the President’s veto message the various objections to the pending
bill, and these objections have been answered both by Members of
Congress and by representatives of the farm organizations. There-
fore, it seems to me that the veto message and these answers present