Agricultural relief: Agricultural relief

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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Volume

Identifikator:: 1831935066

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-232142

Document type:: Volume

Title:: Agricultural relief

Volume count:: Pt. 7

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: Gov. Pr. Off.

Year of publication:: 1928

Scope:: III S., S. 521 - 590

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 581 3. Governmental price firing.—Clearly this legislation involves governmental fixing of prices. It gives the proposed Federal board almost unlimited authority to fix prices on the designated commodities. * * * Nothing is more certain than that such price fixing would upset the normal exchange relationships existing in the open market and that it would finally have to be extended to cover a multitude of other goods and services. Government price fixing, once started, has alike no justice and no end. It is an economic folly from which this country has every right to be spared. * * * [Except as it may be restrained by fear of foreign importations, the farm board, composed of representatives of producers, is given the power to fix the prices of these necessities of life at any point it sees fit. The law fixes no standards, imposes no restrictions, and requires no regula- tion of any kind. There could be no appeal from the arbitrary decision of these men, who would be under constant pressure from their constituents to push prices as high as possible. * * * The bill is essentially a price-fixing bill, because in practical working the board must arrive in some way at the premium price which will be demanded from the American consumer, and it must fix these prices in the contracts at which it will authorize purchases by flour mills, packers, other manufacturers, and such cooperatives as may be used, for the board must formu- late a basis upon which the board will pay losses on the export of their surplus. 4. Delegates power of Congress.— This legislation proposes, in effect, that Con- gress shall delegate to a Federal farm board, nominated by farmers, the power to fix and collect a tax, called an equalization fee, on certain products produced by those farmers. That certainly contemplates a remarkable delegation of the taxing power. * * * The amount of the equalization fees, the method of collection and. disposition of these great sums of money are to be determined by the board without any effective check or review from the Executive or Congress— a delegation of powers under which our form of Government can not continue. 5. Wil not benefit farmer.—The chief objection to the bill is that it would not benefit the farmer. Whatever may be the temporary influence of arbitrary interference, no one can deny that in the long run prices will be governed by the law of supply and demand. To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them on a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption, is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature. 6. Administrative difficulties will wreck plan.—The administrative difficulties involved are sufficient to wreck the plan. No matter how simple an economic conception may be, its application on a large scale in the modern world is attended by infinite complexities and difficulties. The principle underlying this bill, whether fallacious or not, is simple and easy to state; but no one has out- lined in definite and detailed terms how the principle is to be carried out in practice. How can the board be expected to carry out after the enactment of the law what can not even be described prior to its passage? In the meanwhile, existing channels and methods of distribution and marketing must be seriously dislocated. 7. Does not control sirplus.—The bill will not succeed in providing a practical method of controling the agricultural surplus, which lies at the heart of the whole problem. * * * Jt seeks merely to increase the prices paid by the consumer, with the inevitable result of stimulating production on the part of the farmer and decreasing consumption on the part of the public. It ignores the fact that production is curbed only by decreased, not increased, prices. In the end the equalization fee and the entire machinery provided by the bill under considera- tion will merely aggravate conditions which are the cause of the farmer’s present distress. 8. Penalizes some farmers for benefit of others.—The bill would impose the burden of its support to a large degree upon farmers who would not benefit by it. * * * Jt is proposed to increase the price of corn and mill feed to American farmers, and therefore the costs to the dairy and cattle feeding industries whose products are omitted from the, bill. 9. Will stimulate production.—The effect of this plan will be continuously to stimulate American production and to pile up inereasing surpluses bevond the world demand. * * * With such increased surpluses dumped from the United States on to foreign markets the world prices will be broken down and with them American prices upon which the premium is based will likewise be lowered to the point of complete disaster to Amercan farmers. It is impossible to see how this bill can work. RATAN—92[R—QFRE. PT ——— ©

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Agricultural relief (Pt. 7)

Multivolume work

Volume

Table of contents

Download

Volume

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation