Agricultural relief: Export debenture plan

Export debenture plan (Pt. 5)

Bibliographic data

Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1831932415

Document type:: Multivolume work

Title:: Agricultural relief

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: Gov. Pr. Off.

Year of publication:: 1928

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1831934671

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-232129

Document type:: Volume

Title:: Export debenture plan

Volume count:: Pt. 5

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: Gov. Pr. Off.

Year of publication:: 1928

Scope:: III S., S. 299 - 427

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Jesse Newsom, of Indiana

Collection:: Economics Books

396 - AGRICULTURAL RELIEY unusually good weather conditions are certain to produce troublesome sur- pluses of some crops in some years. . When such a condition occurs, evidently the sensible thing to do is to store this surplus until another year. The proposed bill should provide that the board shall take steps to provide necessary storage facilities whenever in the opinion of the board, no other agency or agencies can be relied upon to ware- house, or store a sufficient percentage of such crops, at low enough costs and for a sufficient length of time, to secure for the farmer reasonable prices for their crops. Liberal credit also may be extended to foreigners wha want to buy our agricultural products, and who have sound commercial security to offer for such credit. This principle received the overwhelming indorsement of Con- gress when the original export credit bill of 1921 was before that body. Every year since the World War, Americans have been making huge loans abroad, in one form or another. All too often, however, this money has been expended by the borrowers to buy wheat, corn, and meats, not from the United States but from the Argentine or Australia. If some of these loans could be made for the sole purpose of financing the exportation of American surplus crops, it would mean hundreds of millions of dollars in the farmers’ pockets, in the form of higher prices. Most of us remember the extraordinary increase in the price of grains which resulted from the gift of $20,000,000 worth of foodstuifs to the starving Rus- sians in 1922. From the day our Government began to buy these supplies the price of corn, for example, began to rise, and the day it stopped buying the price of corn stopped rising. Despite the fact that only a small part of the $20,000,006 was spent for corn, it was found that this stimulus to the market means an increase of $150,000,000 in the value of the 1.500.000.0600 bushels of corn left in the country at that time, However, in spite of the three partial remedies above suggested, as well as a crop-acreage limitation plan to be described later, there will always remain the possibility, following a series of favorable years, of pyramiding surpluses of certain crops above domestic requirements, and thus reducing prices below the “American level.” It is this class of crops which fails to benefit by the kind of protective tariff now in opeartion. The prsent Ktcham bill provides that in an agricultural crisis of this kind the board shall establish a system of “export debenture” payments on the exported part of each crop, up to the amount of the tariff on that crop, and 2 cents a pound on cotton. The export-debenture plan would do far more for farmers than would the *“ equalization-fee ” plan and is far simpler to operate. The former is a frank recognition of the principle that the consumers of the United States must help make up to the farmer the loss he suffers through the tariff system. and other governmental price-raising arrangements in industry. . The administration of this feature of the law would be very simple, as has been pointed out to this committee by Doctor Stewart. There is a certain poetic justice in making this compensating payment to the farmer out of funds received from duties collected to “ protect” our manu- facturers. The one action is no more paternalistic than the other. In a way the Government would be merely saying to the farmer: “ Since you must sell your products at world price levels, because our tariff does not protect your wheat, cotton, corn, and meats, we shall permit you to bring in free of duty an equivalent amount of other goods at world price levels.” With the above-outlined provisions in operation, farming again would have a fair break with industry and some plan would have to be devised to prevent undue acreage expansion. The Ketcham bill provides for declining debenture values to discourage overproduction. This would be exactly as effective as the increased equalization fee payments provided in the MecNary-Haugen bill. By Lam inclined to think that considerably more could be done toward acreage wl Jam Dian Jor doing this would be by increasing the acreage of legumes board after car : plowed under as fertilizer. The bill could provide that the overs, probible on y investigating the quantity of the various crop carry- demands at home D cTeagen and crop prospects, together with probable crop of the countrv ought t abroad, shall decide what percentage of the arable land > ht to be planted in lecumes to be plowed under.

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