Henry A. Wallace, is leading an Administration counter-drive against domestic allotment plans calling for price-fixing. Several mid-Western both parties are Mhe Administration strategy appears to be to cling to the present farm programme, for 1939 at least. Minor administrative amendments will be approved, but any major changes will be opposed, Mr. Wallace announced.
Recent speeches and statements by Mr, Wallace and his chief administrative aids have been directed at what they consider to be the vulnerable spots of price-fixing schemes. Mr. Wallace has warned that they would Fegult in a "chaotic farm situation."
Briefly, the domestic allotment plan would provide that the Secretary of Agriculture establish a fair price for farm products for home consumption and permit the remainder of unlimited production to be dumped abroad at whatever price it would bring.
Regimentation Unwanted Administration opponents of the plan assert that it would lead to unprecedented regimentation of agriculture and distributors and to certain failure, The cost to the government, they argue, would be prohibitive.
Establishment of a fair price, or cost of production, on products for home consumption would entail a complicated formula giving each farmer a quota on which the government would guarantee him a certain price based on his costs.
Proponents of the plan differ as to whether the government would require processors to pay that the price or the government would allow products to be sold at market prices and make up the difference by direct subsidy payments.
Administration officials object most strenuously to dumping features of the plan. It calls for the sale abroad of all products not needed at home for whatever price they would bring.
Such a plan Mr. Wallace said, could not succeed. Importing countries would raise their tariffs or would exclude unwanted surpluses through quotas or embargoes, he said.
Case Against Dumping Mr. R. M. Evans, Agricultural Adjustment Administrator, said dumping would lead to "retaliation and trade wars." It would result, he said, in excessively high costs to American consumers and the passing of bargains over the counter to foreign consumers.
"Every bushel of wheat or bale of cotton or pound of lard that moves into export trade at a price less than it actually costs to produce in labour, capital and soil fertility is an absolute loss—never to be recovered," Mr. Evans said. "That is the final weakness of any farm philosophy that encourages dumping."—United Press,
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