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( AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
My. Jones. Since the enactment of the Fordney-McCumber bill
there has been that disparity all the time?

Mr. ANDERSON. I would say that that disparity began with the
decline of prices in 1920.

Mr. Jones. I do not want to bring in the question of the tanff in
that connection. I simply want to say that for several years there
has been a disparity between farm prices generally and prices of other
commodities.

Mr. ANDERSON. Some farm products, yes; not all.

Mr. Jones. You do hear a good many objections to the remedies
that have been offered. Nearly every one who has studied the
problem realizes that something ought to be done. I wonder what
your remedy is. What do you have to suggest as a solution?

Mr. ANDERSON. May I, Mr. Jones, just finish this particular
phase of it, and then I will answer your question? I would like to
get this one thing out of the way, and then I would be very glad to
answer your question.

Mr. Former. I would like to get you clear on this proposition.
You said this bill will interfere with the distribution of wheat and
other commodities?

Mr. ANDERSON. I say it would change the channels of trade.

Mr. Furmer. Do you understand that the bill is only to operate
when we have a surplus so as to take care of the surplus and not
interfere with the balance of the products?

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Fulmer, I do not know. You would have to
ask that question of the proponents of the bill rather than an oppo-
nent, because I do not know.

Mr. Funmer. That is what I understand from the bill and if so,
I can not understand why it would interfere with the regular channels
of trade and distribution.

Mir. ANDERSON. The difficulty about that, Mr. Fulmer, is that you
visualize the surplus, it seems to me, as something which can be
segregated for export, as something that can be entirely segregated
from the surplus that exists more or less all the time for domestic
purposes.
~ In the case of wheat, approximately 55 or 60 per cent of the crop
is marketed by farmers in the first four months of the crop year.
Very frequently a great deal less than that amount is exported during
those four months, leaving a considerable surplus above the imme-
diate uses for domestic requirements, which has to be carried just as
well as does the exportable surplus. You can not separaté in any
way that I can see in the ordinary course of commercial operations
the domestic surplus existing from time to time during the crop year
from the ultimate amount which may prove to be surplused when
you get to the end of a crop year.

1 was discussing the contract which the board would have to make
with these agencies. The third possibility which I had in mind was
that the board might fix in the contract the price at which the agency
was expected to stabilize the price. Of course, that would be in
effect direct price-fixing, as I pointed out, and it would be subject to
the objections which the President makes.

Now I had expected—if I may have Mr. Jones's attention—to
discuss, somewhat hesitantly, I confess, the possible methods that
might be used to bring about a hicher decree of stabilization of the