578

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
Mr. Menges Those products go in export?
Mr. SExaviRr. In export, yes; absolutely.
Mr. MENGES. You are not in the business very strong, are you?
Mr. SExAUER. We have been forced out of the business?
Mr. CLARkE. Is there anything more you want to say?
Mr. Sexavuer. Nothing more. :
Mr. CLarkE. Mr. Chairman, he has the right to revise and extend
his remarks?
The CuairMAN. Oh, yes; they all have that. oo
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H., SETTLE, PRESIDENT INDIANA FARM
BUREAU FEDERATION
Mr. SETTLE. In a crisis that has continued for seven years, such as
has been the case with the present crisis in the farming industry,
surely there has been plenty of time to study the cause of this con-
dition, and to reach some conclusion as to the remedy that is needed.
You can analyze the trouble for seven years more, and you can only
come to one conclusion—that is, that everything the farmer must buy
including labor, is too high in comparison to what he receives for
that he sells.

There is a reason for manufactured articles and labor prices con-
tinuing on a high level; and there is also a reason for agricultural
products remaining on a lower price level. Artificial means such as
the tariff laws and immigration laws are stimulating and maintaining
these prices. That has always been the argument in favor of such
laws, otherwise, there would have been no demand for them in the
first place. Such artificial means of protection as the tariff do not
apply to our surplus farm crops and never can apply to them under
our present system of distribution. If they could be applied under
the present system, it would have been done long ago.

As I see it there are two forms of the problem that we are trying
to solve. One is best illustrated in the case of cotton, where our
exports are sufficiently large to become a dominant factor in the
market of the world and in world price. For such a crop, the need is
to provide a means whereby we can supply the world markets and
world needs in an orderly way, without forcing such markets to take
what they do not need or want at a particular time unless they can
buy it at a bargain price, as is the case now—and of course, these
bargain prices determine all prices. The bill we are now considering
and supporting provides a means to overcome this difficulty.

The second form of the problem is presented by such crops as wheat
corn, hogs, and cattle where our surplus can not become a dominant
factor in world markets and world prices. With such commodities
the need is to provide a means whereby the smaller surpluses as sold
abroad shall not determine the price of the whole commodity as is
the case now. The Haugen bill provides the means of overcoming
this difficulty.

Legislation aimed at farm relief that does not undertake to cope
with these two problems, is of no value to the farmers. Any legis-
lation that does not provide a fund for paying losses incurred in
dealing with these surpluses is of no value because if crop surpluses
are handled intelligently and for the best interests of the producers
losses are sure to occur.